With his dangerous hydroxychloroquine obsession, Trump is putting himself first, not America

When Trump asks “What do you have to lose?” by taking hydroxychloroquine, writes Matthew Norman, the short answer is “Your life”

Why has the president continued promoting an unproven drug for coronavirus treatment? (EPA)

As the old adage goes, there are only three certainties about human existence: death, taxes and Donald Trump lying from a podium.

The first, if more ubiquitous than usual, can often be delayed (as we hope it will for all in intensive care). The second, though they will return with a vengeance, can also be postponed. But there’s no deferring the third. The one certainty in these uncertain times is that, soon after 5.30pm Eastern Standard Time, the president will emit a torrent of mendacious drivel from his puckered blowhole, like a terracotta whale having a hallucinogen-inspired psychotic jag.

Yesterday’s load included a relatively benign example. It was neither overtly malicious nor self-interested when he said: “We’ll see if we can be of help. We’ve contacted all of Boris’ doctors.” But the truth, as I can categorically state after absolutely no research, is that Trump has contacted none of them, directly or otherwise. If he attempted to do so (he didn’t), the result can easily be imagined:

“Doctor Gupta, a call for you.”

“Sister, are you insane? Can’t you see I’m in the middle of intubating this woman?”

“I’m sorry, but it’s the president of the United States. He says he wants to help the PM.”

“Hilarious.”

“No, seriously, it’s Trump.”

“In that case, if he’ll excuse the medical jargon, tell him to f*** off.”

But what help could Trump offer that the intensive care team at St Thomas’ cannot?

The answer, you wearily assume, is hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial he touts as the coronavirus silver bullet. As he might not be aware, British doctors could prescribe it themselves if they wanted to. For various reasons, they don’t. One is that the “very good French trial” Trump loves citing has been clinically debunked as an incredibly bad French trial. The sample was tiny, the methodology dreadful, the results meaningless. Another is that the side effects include dangerous, sometimes fatal, cardiac arrhythmias.

So when Trump asks “What do you have to lose?” by taking hydroxychloroquine, the short answer is: “Your life”.

So what is it that that first attracted President Doolally J Charlatan to hydroxychloroquine? Well, Elon Musk is a fan. Dr Anthony Fauci isn’t, but he’s only Trump’s leading mind on infectious disease. In fact, Fauci has so often and decisively dismissed it – “No”, was his capacious reply when asked if it should be considered as a treatment – that Trump now bars his progress to the mic when reporters invite his opinion. But Musk? The Tesla guy is one of his go-to billionaires (Larry Ellison of Oracle being another) on the pathogen.

Yet there is an alternative explanation for Trump’s hydroxy-lust. A French pharma company, Sanofi, in which several Trump family trusts are invested, manufactures it under the brand name Plaquenil.

There is no certainty that the grifter-in-chief is hyping the drug for profit. It could be one of those eerie coincidences that Carl Jung demystified as synchronicity.

It’s a doozy of a conflict of interest. But after three years of him enabling Ivanka and Jared parlay their West Wing roles into gigabucks, it’s too late for a fainting fit about another of those. Besides, the primary target of his hydroxylust isn’t France. It’s India.

In recent days, Trump has reinterpreted “America first” in an unusually aggressive way. He has dispatched agents to Chinese airports to pay three times the contracted price for medical supplies already in the cargo hold of planes bound for Germany; and threatened trade sanctions to blackmail his dear friend Narendra Modi, India’s muscular PM, into releasing hydroxychloroquine stores (Trump may have inadvertently done India a favour by diverting supplies of a drug that may kill more corona victims than it saves).

It isn’t easy to divine his motives. Personal gain and boosting the stock market aside, he may want to offer hope to the terrified. That is a fair ambition. But an empty hope is worse than none, to misquote Matt Hancock, and a lethally empty hope worst of all.

If hydroxychloroquine does indeed turn out to be useless or harmful, you already know Trump’s response. He’ll tell the world he knew it was a blind alley, just as he knew the Democratic hoax was a pandemic, way before anyone else. He’ll blame Pelosi, the “Moos-lims”, Mexico, Soros, Liechtenstein, CNN and Rosie O’Donnell for what he tried to tell the American people was a scam from the start.

His unblemished imbecility has already killed countless. A newly-leaked memo from his trade adviser, Peter Navarro, dated 29 January, warned precisely of what was coming. Weeks later, Trump was sticking to his hoax line, and insisting it would miraculously vanish. Then he advocated returning the country to work even as the virus was spreading like wildfire through and far beyond the east coast. Now, when he’s not hijacking medical equipment on runways, he’s a salesman of the month for a drug with unknown consequences.

And still, this very stable genius remains favourite for November’s election. If that fact isn’t as petrifying as the virus itself, it’s a frickin’ close run thing.