Monday’s press conference represents not merely a return to Trump’s prior medical quackery, but a deepening of what can only be characterized as a policy of deliberate social murder that has developed throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

President Donald Trump conducted a White House press conference on Monday that stands as the most sweeping assault on science and public health by any sitting president, perhaps only matched by Trump’s infamous April 2020 coronavirus briefing, when he encouraged Americans to inject disinfectant and use ultraviolet light inside their bodies. This latest spectacle represents a dangerous escalation in the Trump administration’s broader war against science, medicine and healthcare policy.