President Trump announced Monday that he will resume daily briefings on the Covid-19 pandemic this week — possibly on Tuesday afternoon.
“I think it’s a great way to get information out to the public as to where we are with the vaccine, with the therapeutics, and generally speaking where we are,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
But it’s decidedly unclear if the briefings will benefit the public, or accurately inform Americans about the virus or the struggle to bring it under control.
They didn’t, the first time around.
Trump gave daily briefings on the pandemic in March and most of April, “which were criticized for downplaying the seriousness of the virus and for spreading misinformation,” says Yahoo News.
Those earlier briefings abruptly ended after Trump’s bizarre suggestions that exposure to ultraviolet light or injecting patients with disinfectants like bleach could cure coronavirus infections.
At the time, the president also dismissed the idea of wearing a mask and promoted the drug hydroxychloroquine, which experts say is ineffective against the virus and can cause heart problems.
However, reports The Hill, the briefings did provide Trump with something he relishes: TV ratings.
“We had very successful briefings. I was doing them, and we had a lot of people watching. Record numbers watching,” he said Monday. “In the history of cable television — television — there’s never been anything like it.”
Which is, of course, both an exaggeration and a classic case of Trumpian deception.
