President Trump speaks during a press briefing with FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn (left) and White House coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx (right) of the coronavirus task force, at the White House, Thursday, March 19, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

No, Mr. Pres­i­dent, you can’t just or­der up out­break meds with the snap of your fin­gers

Don­ald Trump was in clas­sic freestyle speak­ing mode on Thurs­day as he talked up the im­me­di­ate pro­duc­tion of drugs that can fight the new coro­n­avirus.

Chloro­quine got the big head­lines, with Trump not­ing that it can be pre­scribed with­out any­one wor­ry­ing about whether or not it would kill peo­ple. Then there was remde­sivir, Gilead’s ex­per­i­men­tal an­ti-vi­ral that the pres­i­dent said was “es­sen­tial­ly ap­proved.” And Trump vowed to slash through any “red tape” sep­a­rat­ing Amer­i­cans from coro­n­avirus drugs.

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