Surging virus erodes Trump's support

FUTURE historians chronicling President Donald Trump's last year in office and trying to figure out the main reasons for what pollsters expect will be his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, will probably point to the launch of the press briefings by the White House Coronavirus Task Force in late March as one of them.

The plan to provide to the hundreds of thousands of confused and anxious Americans sitting in front of their television sets with information and guidance by the renowned physicians and public health officials like Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and Deborah Birx, the task force coordinator, about the spread of the deadly virus in the country was actually a good idea.

But everything about the briefings started to change when President Trump decided to become the star of the show, dominating the proceedings, engaging in angry exchanges with journalists, bashing his political rivals and anyone who disagreed with him, and occasionally even dispensing weird and dangerous medical advice.