You're offering up a very charitable interpretation to a man that has been saying to take chloroquine and asking "What have you go to lose?" for several weeks now, despite the fact that we know that while chloroquine is relatively safe for most people, there are serious potential side effects including blindness and heart failure that can occur. So, the answer for to his question is "my sight" and "my life", which are, at least in my opinion, significant enough things to risk that he should't be telling people to take the drug.

Why would we expect this to be anything more than more of the same? I know in HN we are supposed to give each other the benefit of the doubt, but we're well beyond benefit of the doubt here - you're asking us to check our critical thinking skills at the door and to ignore past actions - from the very recent past!

You say I'm being very charitable. This is what I see:

- President brings scientist on stage to talk about new findings that will help combat COVID-19. Why? Because it's important to show people that progress is being made and we're not in a hopeless situation.

- President follows up with the scientist with questions about possible therapies that could be developed. He uses words like 'would it be possible to', 'could we somehow', 'and 'it would be interesting to check that.'

To me that's just a natural reading, given the context. Your reading appears to be:

- President brings scientists on stage to talk about findings

- President recommends that people inject themselves with Dettol (motive unclear)

The problem is that's a ridiculously uncharitable interpretation. I mean, is that what you actually believe the president was thinking?

The (hydroxy)chloroquine is example is also a non-issue. Trump correctly pointed out that this was a low-cost, long circulated drug with well understood risks, and that even if we don't yet know for sure if it works, if patients are dying from the virus, it makes sense for doctors to try it. I'm glad he shone a spotlight on it.

>The problem is that's a ridiculously uncharitable interpretation. I mean, is that what you actually believe the president was thinking?

Yes. If not outright recommending it, bringing it up as a somewhat viable possibility. Poison control hotlines have been fielding hundreds of calls asking if it is safe to ingest or inject disinfectant.

>The (hydroxy)chloroquine is example is also a non-issue. Trump correctly pointed out that this was a low-cost, long circulated drug with well understood risks, and that even if we don't yet know for sure if it works, if patients are dying from the virus, it makes sense for doctors to try it. I'm glad he shone a spotlight on it.

Those well understood risks include heart failure and blindness. Trump asked "What have you got to lose?" when saying "I think you should take it", and the answer is my sight and my life. There was no solid medical evidence at that time that chloroquine had any impact on coronavirus in vivo, and what we're finding now is that the null hypothesis is still the best supported in that regard, and that it causes an increase in all cause mortality, to the point where several studies have had to stop because the people they were giving hydroxychloroquine people were dying from heart failure, and the best completed study we have showed a nearly 3x increase in all cause mortality among those taking hydroxychloroquine vs. the control.

It was reckless and irresponsible, exactly like this.

>(motive unclear)

The motive is extremely clear. Trump is worried about a wrecked economy ruining his re-election chances. He wants to open the economy back up to improve his chances, so getting people to believe that we have a plethora of solutions to novel coronavirus helps him achieve that goal.

OK, if you actually think the president was recommending that people start injecting themselves at home, rather than asking a scientist if there could be experiments to develop a new treatment, then we’re simply not experiencing the same reality, so not much point in discussing further.

Trump never suggested people should start injecting any chemical in their bodies. It was the MEDIA that told people that Trump suggested they inject chemicals in their body. If anyone actually injects chemicals in their body, it is likely because the media told them Trump told them to. So the blood will be on the media's hands.