For three days, President Trump cut a somber figure in the White House briefing room, warning Americans of the sacrifices they faced, invoking the collective spirit of World War II, and outlining how his government was tackling the unfolding coronavirus emergency.
By the fourth day, he could not resist reverting to his campaign persona, getting ahead of his medical experts on a potential new COVID-19 treatment and berating the media for unfair coverage.
“They are siding with China,” he said, as key figures from his coronavirus task force stood uncomfortably behind him. “They are doing things that they shouldn’t be doing. They are siding with many others. China is the least of it.
“Why are they doing this? You’ll have to ask them.
“But if we had an honest media in this country, our country would be an even greater place.”
The exchange marked a departure from three days of carefully choreographed briefings. Monday brought social distancing guidelines, Tuesday introduced a stimulus package, and Wednesday described how the medical-industrial complex was responding to the government’s call for help.
At times, he even thanked the media for helping get the message out.
Thursday’s briefing had at its heart an important headline that the Food and Drug Administration was working to speed through a number of possible new treatments for COVID-19. But even that was undermined when the head of the FDA tactfully had to correct Trump’s claim that the anti-malarial drug chloroquine would be available almost immediately.
It was much like when the president gave a four-month timeline for a vaccine only to hear one of his medical experts say it would be at least a year.
And the whole thing was overshadowed by anti-media tirade in response to a softball question lobbed by a correspondent from One America News asking whether the president considered the term “Chinese food” racist.
It offered Trump an opportunity to hit back at critics who chastise him for referring to the novel coronavirus as the “Chinese virus.”
“It is more than fake news,” he said, as he singled out the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. “It’s corrupt news. They write stories without calling anybody.”
So far, more than 10,000 people across the United States have been diagnosed with the illness, and more than 160 have died.
A slew of countries announced they were shutting borders. India said it was barring incoming flights for a week, while Australia and New Zealand closed their borders to everyone except their own citizens.
The European Central Bank announced an $820 billion bond-buying program, and the Bank of England cut interest rates to 0.1%, as nations around the world scramble to shore up splintering economies.
Yet there was a measure of good news. Scientists are monitoring China for lessons in halting the spread after it reported its first 24 hours without any new community-transmitted cases.
Trump took the podium flanked by members of his task force, including FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn, to announce measures to speed up the availability of new treatments.
At its heart lay a plan to ensure that drugs already tested and approved for other conditions be speedily turned to treating COVID-19.
“Nothing will stand in our way as we pursue any avenue about what best works against this horrible virus,” Trump said.
He and Hahn described the promise of remdesivir, an experimental antiviral drug, and the potential of collecting antibodies from the blood of patients with COVID-19.
But Trump focused on chloroquine, a long-standing treatment for malaria. Its potential success has been touted by Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, among others.
“We’re going to be able to make that drug available almost immediately,” Trump said. “And that’s where the FDA has been so great. It’s gone through the approval process.”
It has been approved, he said, adding, “We’re going to be able to make that drug available by prescription.”
Just one problem: It has not been approved, at least not for treating COVID-19, as the FDA commissioner very gently explained.
“It’s already approved, as the president said, for treatment of malaria as well as arthritis condition,” Hahn said, when it was his turn at the lectern, explaining that clinical trials were still needed.
“That’s a drug that the president has directed us to look at,” he said, explaining that clinical trials were still needed to see if it would benefit patients.
