THE CORPSE AT EVERY FUNERAL:

Health experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director and sometime guest expert at Trump's daily pressers, have consistently pointed out that hydroxychloroquine has not been proven to be safe or effective against COVID-19. But that's not stopping Trump -- or the conservative media universe that props up his presidency -- from continuing to push the drug. And while reports this week showed the president has a small financial interest in the medicine, Trump has something even more precious to gain than money by promoting hydroxychloroquine: the puffing up of his power and authority through the continued undermining of expert knowledge and dissenting voices.

No doubt, Trump's financial stake in hydroxychloroquine, however small, has surely played some part in his actions. This is a man, after all, who once stole $7 from his charity to pay for his son's Boy Scouts fee.

In plain daylight, Trump has funneled millions of public dollars to his coffers while president, an ongoing violation of the Constitution and a direct assault on the public trust. As both candidate and president, Trump has regularly used the public limelight to shill everything from his line of steaks and winery to his golf resorts and properties. Rather than a national security hawk who has kept America safe, Trump is a smarmy hawker of shoddy products, some of which may threaten the safety of Americans. From the start, Trump understood that the presidency could be a cash cow for himself, and he'll never let the Constitution -- or American lives -- stand in the way of raking in millions.

Yet Trump also covets power and has an insatiable need for public adoration that has been curtailed by the momentary pause on his public rallies. Clearly out of his depth when it comes to understanding the virus, Trump has latched onto hydroxychloroquine as a way of keeping himself at the center of the story. Like an ignored child who settles for his parents' negative attention by acting out, Trump knows he can keep the spotlight on him by continuing to recklessly promote hydroxychloroquine, something reporters are right to press him on. And all of it has the added benefit of undercutting the actual experts in the room, a move essential to Trump's constant pitch that his gut instinct is superior to expert knowledge.

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