Trump gave a press conference last week where he spoke off the cuff again with the usual blumbering and dithering struggle to form sentences, on the subject of curing COVID with injecting disinfectant and UV light under the skin.
At least that's how his message was widely understood. The Poisons Hotlines were soon innundated. An avalanche of controversy, confusion and chaos ensued. Like it normally does after Trump says anything.
Trump was trying to articulate the recent advice he'd received from his medical advisers.
As usual he made a mess of it.
Instead of reading off carefully worded speaking points drafted by medical advisers, he assumed he knew it all from the briefing and could summarise it for the people off the top of his head.
When he got stuck with the details, he turned to his adviser as though this would make his utterances more believable and supported. His adviser was sitting too far away to clarify anything well.
The media and others jumped on his drivel, twisting his words a little to make him sound even more bonkers than usual.
To be fair, there is a rationale behind the poorly spoken summary he gave.
Chemotherapy is a kind of "cleaning product" injected in patients to kill cancer cells. Perhaps this is the kind of thing he had been advised, in principle.
Infrared light, LASER and Xrays and ultrasound are all already used as a medical treatment for many diseases. Perhaps something like this was explained to Trump.
The word "disinfectant" does contain the concepts of neutralising an infection. But the term is more commonly understood as the toxic cleaning agent that makes you very sick if you drink it.
It's fair to say that Trump's mistake with this press conference was that he was simply unable to paraphrase the complex medical advice he had been given. He's got a track record for this approach.
But his Hubris won't allow him to let someone else be the genius with the cure for COVID. He wants to deliver the hope for a cure or treatment himself. Trump: Saviour of the World!
The problem for the world is not so much that the US President has inadvertantly caused dangerous irresponsible panic and chaos among the public over how to apply household toxic cleaners in their fight against COVID.
The problem for the world is that the US President has the brain of a poorly educated nine year old in the body of an arrogant callous sexist racist bigoted billionaire.
When you combine wealth, connection and real political power with stupidity, hubris, ignorance, ego mania and arrogance, you get a very dangerous person. And here's another example of why Trump is dangerous to our health, not just our happiness.
His advice was probably sound. The hunt for a vaccine, anti-viral treatments and medical mitigations against COVID is a priority for the entire world and everything is on the table.
The advice he is not getting or ignoring is to step aside and let someone better at articulating difficult concepts speak, especially when lives and livelihoods matter, and especially when Words matter more than they ever have.
