It feels like a lifetime ago now, but who could forget that infamous Trump speech near the start of the pandemic — when he announced his coronavirus action plan in the rose garden, flanked by executives from some of America’s household-name brands?
Scheduling the required this-means-war statement that leaders everywhere were doing, Trump — ever the showman and supposed “dealmaker in chief” — put a WWE twist on it, giving the speech a kind of “Coronavirus: Sponsored By” feel. Enthusing about the men and women beside him as executives from “some of the largest companies and greatest retailers and medical companies in the world” the president provided the kind of advertising money can’t buy. At least one of those execs even had the opportunity to plug his brand personally at the podium.
At the time, Fox News fluffer-in-chief Sean Hannity almost got the camera lens dirty gushing about it, naming all the brands in accompanying graphics while lauding a “massive paradigm shift in the future of disease control and prevention.”
Read Full Article »