The Domestos President - Thickest ever?

Advising people to drink disinfectant seems a bit out there even for Donald Trump so I sought out the uncut footage to see what actually happened. 

Has the President really been decontextualized?  Is he really advising that bleach could be a cure?  Was he being sarcastic?

Well, gentle reader …I can’t find the uncut footage but there’s a reason for that which is not – I think – the fake news conspiring against the President.  No, it’s simpler than that … having watched many versions of this press conference here’s what I think happened…

Trump had a meeting with some doctors in which he proposed possible solutions and being in a room with the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES they just said “Yes, sir, we’ll look into that…”.  Then Trump brought the doctors to the news conference to help make him look clever.

However, Trump can never give up the limelight… so he stands at the podium and pontificates while the Doctors sit in their chairs to one side.  Trump has the same conversation he had with them in private but in public... and it looks really stupid.   Trump has made a career out of mocking experts ...his nemesis is a life and death situation where experts are needed more than ever ... and Trump can't stand it...

Donald Trump sees himself as an ideas man …so where there’s a problem he sees it as his job to come up with ideas and float solutions to the problem.  But, of course, there aren’t simple solutions to the Coronavirus pandemic …there are just lots of problems that the best virologists in the world are desperately trying to solve.   If only it really was as simple as drinking Domestos… but unfortunately killing a virus without killing the patient is the holy grail of virology that has eluded doctors and biomedical scientists since the dawn of time.  In one sense it's a really innocent thought ... if Domestos kills 99 per cent of all known germs why don't we just drink it?  But it's so innocent the last time I heard the question posed was when I was 11 and another child asked it in a biology lesson.  The answer is of course that drinking Domestos will indeed kill 99 per cent of all known germs but it has the result of solving all your other problems as well - permanently.

But instead of, as the Downing Street briefings do, dividing the platform time up between politicians and scientists Donald’s muddled it all together… with the result of him appearing to give clearly nonsensical and dangerous medical advice.  To be fair he does repeatedly add the disclaimer “I’m not a Doctor…” but this doesn’t help much.  Of course dividing the questions up isn’t a perfect solution either …the last Downing Street briefing I saw the politician was asked what he made of Trump’s remarks and he gave the question to the medical expert to answer – Sorry, that was also a political question…?

Anyway the reason I can’t find unedited footage of Trump’s press conference is this … these days his press conferences last up to 90 minutes.  Now to be fair to Trump he does try and answer questions in this time – it’s an often cited criticism of politicians that they evade questions … not Trump – the problem is that the answers make little or no sense.  He just waffles on and on filling dead air, enjoying the attention and saying nothing that makes much sense … Mr Mouth is working but Mr Brain has long since left the building.

Trump has always been eccentric – to put it politely – but perhaps there’s a deeper problem here that his advisors …if he ever listens to them… have given up on reigning him in …in the belief that he’ll probably be out anyway in November 2020.  There’s a feeling about the whole thing that for whatever reason …no one cares anymore.   

Only the other day he declared himself to have power over state Governors …only for them to ignore him because he doesn’t under the constitution.  Having downplayed the virus, then removed funding from the WHO after scapegoating them when they warned him of the dangers … Trump is now desperate to offer the electorate some hope.  Sunlight, UV, Domestos …these are all straws that a drowning man is grasping at…

…for at the moment the polls suggest he will lose in 2020.   

Why?