Okay, so at this point, there are either two things that are happening to the alleged President of these United States. Either…
1.) The President of the United States is taking hydroxychloroquine to prevent himself from getting COVID-19, even though there is precious little data that suggest such an act can even fight COVID-19, much less prevent it, or;
2.) The President of the United States is lying about taking hydroxychloroquine the same way he lies about everything else and is simply bringing it up because he still wrongly believes it can fight COVID-19, which, again, none of the data presented says that is the case.
His announcement that he was taking it featured all the hallmarks of Trump’s blustering approach to governance. His insistence that many front line professionals are taking it seemed to come right the fuck out of nowhere. The verbal tick he has, where, in order to give his words more authority, he claims that “many people” are taking it, and “I get lots of positive calls about it”.
You know that Trump has said something truly insane when his friends at Fox News have to warn their viewers not to do what the President is doing “I cannot stress this enough; this will kill you,” Neil Cavuto pleaded with Fox News’ audience during his anchor slot. Fucking Fox News even realizes that this could kill people.
Trump has spent much of the pandemic claiming hydroxychloroquine is some sort of miracle drug. People have already overdosed and poisoned themselves by taking the medication. Lives have already been lost. When Trump isn’t promoting the drug, he’s pushing for the economy to re-open, which could lead to even more preventable deaths.
Either Trump doesn’t realize that the shit he says and does has an impact on others, or he does realize it, and simply doesn’t care. He can not be moved by facts. He can’t be moved by death. He simply can’t be moved at all.
There’s not a lot more I can say. Trump is a lunatic, and his continued existence as our President is increasingly endangering the lives of us all. Anyone who thought that Trump has done a good job not ruining things had better wake up and pay attention real fast.
It seems like I’m alone in this thought, based on other conversations I’ve had, but I think he honestly might be taking it. He is so paranoid in general, he believes whatever person tells him the thing he wants to hear and is easily manipulated, and he also does literally nothing that prioritizes his own health because he doesn’t understand health, despite being terrified of death (like, who is so worried about mortality that they ONLY EAT FAST FOOD?!!).
I think it would be very on brand for him to be literally taking his own snake oil.
Weirdly enough, I believe him too. He’s canny but not smart; he doesn’t have enough foresight to plan to say he’s taking it just to cover his tracks on other stuff. Plus, for someone who lies constantly, he’s terrible at it, and he has a million tells. That statement didn’t read like lying. (Now, should anybody care? Or should the media be making a big deal about it in light of the other stuff? Different questions.)
Counterpoint: I think he’s lying because his track record of lying about everything approaches 100%. Trump is a sociopath, and other people aren’t “real” to him — they’re objects that he sometimes interacts with, like you might interact with a mailbox. In another timeline, he would have been a serial killer. He can lie constantly because who cares what objects “think” about anything? He’s the only thing in his universe.
Yeah, but this is a lie about himself that does him no personal good. We know he’s a germaphobe; we know he’s got a smooth conspiracy brain — it all tracks that he would absolutely believe what the man on the TV told him to do (because he told the man on the TV to say it during a press conference). This is Trump eating up his own reflection.
It does him personal good in more than one way. Grifters gonna grift!
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-stake-company-hydroxychloroquine_n_5e8c41d7c5b6e1d10a696280
He can make $$ for himself & his donors (which gets dumped back in his campaign) & if he doesn’t get Covid, say “see, I know more than those Libtard doctors!” I don’t think he is taking it. If you are a gambler you always go with the better odds, Trump lies more than he tells the truth by at least 10 to 1.
…great minds?
…at least that’s my excuse – your comment wasn’t showing for me when I made that other one
This was going to be my question. Figures.
Snopes says it is mostly false.
That doesn’t take into account the large donor that is Sanofi’s biggest investor & I am sure more than one other. I heard Seth Abramson breaks it down pretty well in this book but I haven’t read it yet.
https://www.sethabramson.net/
I don’t believe he’s a germaphobe either. This is a guy whose bragged about contracting numerous STDs and still had unprotected sex with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. And those are the only ones we know about. He also bragged about groping women, kissing them. These aren’t the actions of a germaphobe. I don’t know why he started claiming to be one, but his actions do nothing to support this story.
…my personal theory is that the orange lacquer comes off when he gets sweaty & shakes hands so he’s been putting that about as an excuse not to?
…well…that & he owes a lot of Russian dudes some serious money…so…probably gave up tea & sushi a while back, too?
mercy! no more mentions of ‘orange lacquer’ and ‘when he gets sweaty’ please!
🙂
Look, everyone is right here because of course he lies constantly, but he lies so much that he accidentally tells the truth on himself ALL THE TIME.
Donald Trump is simultaneously the least honest and the most honest man alive.
He’s Schrödinger’s Asshole!
At the end of the day we all agree he’s a shitball. The precise nature of his shittiness is in the realm of abnormal psychiatry, so our discussion is purely academic. But fun!
This is definitely a valid counterpoint. Haha.
…it seems unclear to me whether on balance of probabilities he is or isn’t actually taking it…he’s certainly dumb enough to take his own dumb advice & insist on being given it
…it’s also possible that the White House medical staff know their ass from their elbow & actually administer something altogether different
…where I think we have some certainty though is that he keeps mentioning the stuff because he promised somebody somewhere some bigly sales figures they haven’t been hitting & he needs to squeeze his market a little harder…probably because they drive a better bargain than him so he doesn’t make his numbers the part that’s meant to send its way around a few houses before settling in his pocket might not be due…but that’s just speculation based on decades of shady & spectacularly poor deal making on his part… obviously?
Of course all of you are right – but also, this comes to mind.
Yep!
I pretty much immediately made the mental jump to “‘Pirin Tablets!” when he said he was taking HCQ himself….
Because *ain’t* no doctor around, who’s going to proscribe an off-label, black-box medicine to a *president* with heart disease (https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/17/health/trump-heart-disease-gupta/index.html ) & obesity…
Knowing how litigious that prez & his cartel/family are, anyway…
HCQ is *known* to cause heart rhythm issues;
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4860751/
No doctor in their right mind, and even the VAST majority in their *wrong* minds–of the sort who’d GLADLY work for Mango Mussolini would never *actually* give him HCQ…
A placebo they TOLD him was HCQ?
ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY!
But not the real stuff,’cuz *when* he died from n arrhythmia,it’d be THEIR ass in prison, and their license yanked.
WHY ISN’T ANYONE CALLING FOR HIS RESIGNATION. Election be damned, he is costing thousands of lives daily, and is now taking drugs that can kill. WHAT MORE DO THEY WANT.
umm… a pony?
i still havent entirely processed him getting elected yet…itll take me a while to get around to wondering why nobodys calling for his resignation
tbh… its hard enough to keep up with all the shit he makes the news for any given day
anyone calling for his resignation is probably just getting drowned out by the trump show
I think we’ve just given up calling for it haha.