Distract...

10 things Trump would like to distract you from focusing on

Analysis by Zachary B. Wolf

Here's a bold prediction: President Donald Trump is going to say something either totally outlandish, verifiably false or completely ridiculous soon.

Maybe all three. Maybe multiples of all three.

On Wednesday, it was his pushing (again) of a baseless conspiracy theory involving MSNBC host Joe Scarborough and his threatening of states pursuing mail-in ballots.

Earlier in the week it was, most notably, that he's taking hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial drug the Food and Drug Administration has said you should not self-prescribe to treat coronavirus.

Read the transcript. I urge you to go back and read the rambling answer Trump gave that led him to divulge that he's been on the drug for the past 10 days or so.

This is not a man who shares information about his health except to brag about it. But he intentionally engaged reporters on the fact that he's taking this drug.

Fear of whistleblowers. The question that led to the exchange was about another outlandish thing he had said, on Twitter, after "60 Minutes" interviewed the whistleblower Rick Bright, who has said he was pressured to push hydroxychloroquine as a treatment despite a lack of evidence.

Trump, in his answer to reporters, lumped Bright in with the whistleblower who first raised concerns about his pressure on Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden. Remember that? Trump does!

They're all the same to Trump. In his mind, it seems like someone is either pro-Trump or anti-Trump. And whistleblowers must be anti-Trump to him.

But his baiting also has the effect of distraction.

Distraction is what he's doing when he:

Trolls the FDA and science in general by taking hydroxychloroquine.

Keeps making up things to accuse Barack Obama of doing.

Vilifies Democratic governors, trying to make them responsible for the Covid-19 shutdown. Ahem. It'll take both parties to reopen the country.

What could Trump possibly want to distract you from?

Here are 10 things off the top of my head:

More than 90,000 Americans have died from Covid-19 since January.

As of Tuesday, at least 17 states have recorded a clear upward trend of average new daily cases.

We're approaching Depression-level unemployment.

The Covid-19 shutdown economic recovery could take years, according to the Fed chairman.

The vast majority of $500 billion set aside by Congress to stabilize the economy hasn't been spent by the administration.

A whistleblower says the Trump administration attempted to bypass the vetting process for hydroxychloroquine.

The administration is threatening to end World Health Organization funding over its response to coronavirus rising in China, but Trump himself spent January and February praising China.

The Trump administration has replaced or removed four inspectors general since impeachment.

The ousted State Department inspector general was in investigating a Saudi arms deal.

What could be the first deadly al Qaeda attack on US soil since 9/11 occurred last year in Florida.

Great big waste

Obama will not be invited to White House for portrait unveiling --That Trump doesn't want to be near Democrats is not new.

(Trump keeps pushing unfounded accusations at Barack Obama!)

That Democrats don't want to be anywhere near Trump is also old news. (They impeached him for trying to get Ukraine to hurt Joe Biden!)

That there won't be an official unveiling of former President Barack Obama's portrait at the White House is more evidence today of a complete and total partisan breakdown at exactly the wrong moment.

Unprecedented animosity. "Presidential portrait unveilings are one of the three events that bring former presidents together. This level of animosity between a sitting president and his predecessors is unprecedented in modern history," Kate Andersen Brower, author of "Team of Five: The Presidents Club in the Age of Trump" and a CNN contributor, told CNN.

Read her book! It's out.

What a waste -- It's not just Trump vs. Obama. On Tuesday the President called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a "waste of time."

To be fair, she had called him "morbidly obese" when raising concerns about his taking of that non-FDA-approved drug hydroxychloroquine. (He is, per the numbers crunched by Chris Cillizza, just obese, so her comment was a dig.)

"I don't respond to her, I think she's a waste of time," the President told reporters on Capitol Hill.

Good news

Memorial Day -- It is still possible to take part in some parades. With a catch.

Magic Johnson says he's giving $100 million to help fund loans to minority-owned businesses.

This guy ran a mile in 4 minutes, 37 seconds while dribbling a basketball.