Trump plans to call Putin on Wednesday about 200 people in Irkutsk under medical observation for plague exposure. The President doesn't think it's a bioweapon. He just thinks 200 people accidentally got exposed to the f*cking plague in eastern Siberia like it's a normal Tuesday.
Plague. Not a data breach. Not a ransomware attack. Plague. The thing that killed a third of Europe in the 1300s and inspired children's nursery rhymes about corpses.
But sure, let's pencil in a casual Wednesday phone call. Maybe they'll discuss trade policy. Maybe they'll talk about Syria. Maybe Putin will explain how 200 people stumbled into plague exposure in 2026 the same way you stumble into a Starbucks.
The retail traders who spent Monday panic-buying biotech stocks just got their faces ripped off when Trump announced his assessment. They saw the word plague and thought they'd found the next Moderna. Bought calls at the top. Didn't consider that the sitting President might just tweet "not a bioweapon" and vaporize their entire thesis before lunch.
Eastern Siberia, by the way. Not a densely populated research hub. Not Moscow. Irkutsk region, where the primary industries are mining, timber, and apparently plague storage.
The best part is the confidence. Trump doesn't think it's a bioweapon. Based on what intelligence, we don't know. Based on what epidemiological analysis, we can't say. But he's ruled it out before the phone call even happens. Putin must be thrilled he doesn't need to prepare talking points.
Somewhere a day trader is still holding those biotech shares, convinced this is all misdirection, certain the real story will break any minute now, refreshing Twitter every six seconds while his account bleeds out like a 14th-century plague victim.
Photo by Jørgen Håland on Unsplash
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