Trump's press conferences reveal nothing more than his 'relentless self-pity': presidential historian

Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," historian Jon Meacham expressed disgust with Donald Trump's daily press conferences that are ostensibly about the COVID-19 crisis that is ravaging the country but have instead become a showcase for the president's out of control narcissism.

Speaking with hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezinski, Mecham got right to the point after host Scarborough noted that the president does nothing but lie when addressing the public.

"Look, the briefings are now experimental theater in weaponized narcissism, right?" Meacham replied. "It''s just this relentless self-pity. He's let the world see exactly what goes on in his head, he's an open synapse of these things. He cannot, in fact, seem to learn from his mistakes."

"What's so interesting to me, because I've adopted your mantra of -- that he is really a political day trader," He continued. "I don't fully understand why, because this is in his interest as well as the national interest -- for once, they're aligned -- why there would not be a testing plan, right? We have plenty of time to argue about the initial phases of this. Did it come from Europe or Asia? How did it get to New York? Where was the PPE? Where were the respirators? That's for the pandemic commission, right?"

"That doesn't help anybody at this point," he added. "This is a three-prong strategy: you have to take care of the sick people now. You have to keep people from getting sick now. And you have to, as you've been saying, get the testing in order to open, not just businesses, but schools. you have to restore some normalcy to American life."

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