Still sick and dependent on a potent cocktail of antiviral drugs and steroids, President Donald Trump turned his highly choreographed return to the White House into another vivid example of the recurrent theme of his presidency: the denial of obvious facts when they don’t meet his political needs.
His message Monday evening and reiterated Tuesday was that Americans had nothing to fear from the coronavirus, and it denied the obvious: The disease he said would disappear as the weather warmed in the spring, "like a miracle,” had already claimed the lives of more than 210,000 of his compatriots.
Trump wasn’t really saying anything new — he has minimized the effects of the virus since January — and his presidency has in many ways been defined by his dismissal of many of the biggest threats facing the United States. His preoccupation with demonstrating strength or rearranging facts to reinforce his worldview has led him, time and again, to downplay, ignore or mock everything from climate change to Russian interference in the American political process.