Over the past several weeks, Donald Trump has addressed the nation multiple times on the matter of the deadly coronavirus, presumably in an attempt to assure people he has things under control and that there’s no need to panic. Unfortunately, each time the result has been that most of the country has been left significantly more concerned than it was before he approached the lectern, which probably has to do with the fact that (1) Trump routinely uses the opportunity to spread germs, possibly COVID-19-laced, in real time, (2) that he says things like, “I’ve been briefed on every contingency you could possibly imagine. Many contingencies. A lot of positive. Different numbers, all different numbers, very large numbers, and some small numbers too,” and (3) at least half to three quarters of the claims that come out of his mouth are complete and total lies.

On Sunday, for instance, hours after Dr. Anthony Fauci warned the press that “things will get worse before they get better” and “there are going to be people who are young who are going to wind up getting seriously ill,” Trump told the country that “young people, people of good health...are just not strongly affected,” and that in general, everyone just needs to “relax” because “we’re doing great.”

Trump’s claims were not just complete fiction but wildly dangerous given that the number one thing health officials have advised is for people to stay home and away from others, and telling young people they’re not at risk is exactly the kind of false hope that’s caused them to continue to go out to bars and restaurants, likely further spreading the virus.

Meanwhile, Friday’s address from the Rose Garden, during which the president excitedly announced a new website that he suggested would do wonders to address the current health crisis, was, characteristically, mostly bullshit:

It started as a series of conversations this past week between officials working with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and the chief executive of Verily, a life sciences subsidiary of Google’s parent company, about how it might help the Trump administration in the fight against the coronavirus. Verily was developing a website that could let people evaluate their symptoms and direct them to nearby “drive through” locations for testing. Desperate to tap the private sector to satisfy the public’s demands for a more robust response to the rapidly spreading virus, Mr. Kushner was quickly sold on the idea.

But on Friday, President Trump inflated the concept far beyond reality. At a news conference in the Rose Garden, he said that the company was helping to develop a website that would sharply expand testing for the virus, falsely claiming that “Google has 1,700 engineers working on this right now” and adding that “they’ve made tremendous progress.” In truth, the project at Verily—which has a total of about 1,000 employees—is in its infancy. A pilot program is planned for the San Francisco area, but a website has yet to be unveiled. Testing locations have not been identified, and the coronavirus tests themselves are not yet widely available.... The disconnect between Mr. Trump’s exuberant comments and the project’s more modest expectations was the latest example of the president exaggerating, overselling, or making wholly inaccurate statements about his administration’s response to the virus, even as facts on the ground contradicted his rosy assessments of progress.

Per the New York Times, Google executives, “eager to show they are working with the president,” have been “racing to meet [his] promise even as they acknowledge that the debut of the website will be far more limited than Mr. Trump has suggested.” On Sunday, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and its parent company, Alphabet, said that his team is working on an online tool that will let users take a “screener survey” and, if necessary, be directed to testing locations. Use of the tool will be restricted to California residents, however, which is nice for California but does little to address the nationwide crisis, as Trump and Mike Pence claimed it would. (On Friday, Pence said the website would make “hundreds of thousands of tests” possible “in the very near future.”) While Verily said its goal is for the website to ultimately serve other areas, at present there is no timeline for such expansion.

For his part, Trump took to Twitter to rage at the media for accurately reporting that his claims about Google’s planned site bore little resemblance to what the company promised, because demonizing the press comes much more naturally to him than admitting he’s a pathological liar.

Speaking of which:

— How coronavirus is creating a fake-news nightmarescape
— Why do Dubai’s princesses keep trying to escape?
— Is Karen Pence’s transformation a play for 2024?
— A Nassim Taleb protégé has tips on how to prepare for the coming market crash
— Health officials and scientists are now banned from speaking about coronavirus
— This is how Matt Gaetz became Trump’s ultimate protégé
— From the Archive: Inside Stephen Glass’s web of deception that emerged as the most sustained fraud in modern journalism

Looking for more? Sign up for our daily Hive newsletter and never miss a story.