‘TV cameras are oxygen to Donald Trump’: CNN’s John Harwood reveals why the president flip-flopped on briefings

Donald Trump resumed his highly-controversial COVID-19 briefings on Monday, after it was widely reported that White House staff and outside advisors feared the TV spectacles had been damaging the president's political standing.

"The president said this weekend the briefings were not worth the 'time and effort,' that is a quote from him," CNN's Don Lemon noted. That didn't last long, because he was back rewriting history and shifting the blame tonight.

For analysis, Lemon interviewed CNN White House correspondent John Harwood.

"He just can't stay away, can he?" Lemon asked.

"That wasn't a serious question, was it, Don?" Harwood replied.

"No, no," Lemon said. "Rhetorical."

"Of course he can't stay away, TV cameras are oxygen to Donald Trump," Harwood said.

"He was chastened by what happened last Thursday when he made that crazy statement about disinfectants and injecting them into the body and light and all that sort of stuff. He was made a figure of mockery, he walked out on Friday without taking questions and didn't appear at briefings over the weekend," he explained. "But Donald Trump's ego is such that he thinks he can talk himself out of these situations and so he was out there again today, having said he wasn't going to be."

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