Who can keep up with the chaos of this White House anymore? Every week, it seems, the Trump administration floats a bizarre new notion about the coronavirus—one that always makes the crisis seem less severe than it is and that usually forces officials to later backtrack.

To wit: The administration in late August announced an emergency use authorization for plasma transfusions to treat Covid-19, which, as TNR contributor Melody Schreiber reported, could “upend important research on plasma and antibodies—knowledge about immunology that might have led to a cure or vaccine.” Then, this Tuesday, the National Institutes of Health announced there was “insufficient data to recommend either for or against the use of convalescent plasma in Covid-19,” and it “should not be considered standard of care” for those suffering from the virus. Also last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested that asymptomatic people not get tested—advice that turns out to have been issued while Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading infectious diseases expert on Trump’s coronavirus task force, was literally unconscious. (He was under anesthesia for a procedure.) It is perhaps no coincidence that another adviser on that task force—Dr. Scott Atlas, a non-epidemiologist who questions face masks and thinks kids can’t transmit the coronavirus—has gotten Trump’s ear of late. Meanwhile, Trump is busy painting himself as a “law and order” president, as if unintentional irony is the Pantene Color of the Year. His most recent move on this front was to compare cops killing Black people to golfers who “choke” on a putt.

Behind this madness, it’s important to remember, elements of the executive branch are proceeding with ruthless consistency. One of the most striking examples in recent months has been the Environmental Protection Agency’s deregulation drive. Monday brought news that the agency is weakening a 2015 regulation that required coal plants to keep arsenic and mercury out of wastewater that could contaminate nearby water sources. This comes on the heels of announcements on weakening emissions controls, expanding drilling, and removing wildlife and crucial habitat protections. “All told,” The New York Times reported in July, “the Trump administration’s environmental rollbacks could significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions and lead to thousands of extra deaths from poor air quality each year, according to energy and legal analysts.” (It’s worth checking out its interactive list of all these moves.)
 
Still, it feels like there’s something particularly audacious about this one. What politician in their right mind is pro-arsenic? And who supports such a move mere days after the country watched a toxic chemical cloud from a burning factory engulf Lake Charles, Louisiana, after Hurricane Laura? If this is what the EPA comes up with a full two months before Election Day, you have to wonder what’s next.

—Heather Souvaine Horn, deputy editor