Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie joined Dana Bash on CNN's The Daily DC podcast.

He must have thought no one was listening. There's no other explanation why he would promote the idea that the United States must accept many more deaths as a proper sacrifice to the US economy.

Christie said, “Are there ways that we can thread the needle here to allow that there are going to be deaths, and there are going to be deaths no matter what?”

And in an effort to paint Donald Trump as a wartime president, Chris Christie chose the analogy of World War II and the death toll for our soldiers that followed.

He tried to claim that since we sent our soldiers to fight the Nazis and the Japanese to defend our way of life -- now all Americans should sacrifice themselves and go back to work.

"We sent our young men during World War II over to Europe, out to the Pacific, knowing, knowing that many of them would not come home alive,” Christie said.

He continued, “And we decided to make that sacrifice because what we were standing up for was the American way of life. In the very same way now, we have to stand up for the American way of life.”

Too many Republicans are claiming it's absolutely necessary for people to go back to work to keep our way of life intact and to accept the idea (as we did in World War II) that "we" are sending people off to die.

Dana Bash then asked the ex-governor if the public could accept reopening following reports that a White House model is now projecting a daily death toll of 3,000 by June 1.

Which is equivalent to a 9/11 every day.

"They're gonna have to, " he said.

Christie replied, “In the end, you're going to have to tell them that people are going to die."

And you thought The Wicker Man was just a horror movie.