Among the mainstream media’s more disturbing behaviors in the White House press briefing room over the last few weeks has been their condemnations of President Trump for touting the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a possible treatment for those suffering from the Wuhan coronavirus.

As he’s done so, the mainstream media have furiously worked in concert to downplay the potential benefits of the drug, accusing him of giving people as sense of “false hope” over what the media frequently describes as an “unproven drug.” They’ve even bizarrely blamed Trump for the death of a man who allegedly swallowed fish tank cleaner after Trump promoted hydroxychloroquine at press briefings.

But this week the mainstream media have felt especially triumphant on the issue of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the virus. After the Associated Press reported that there were “more deaths, no benefit from malaria drug in VA virus study“, the press, liberal commentators, and some of the more self-righteous on the right rushed to claim victory in the battle over whether or not Trump should be promoting the drug.

As Betsy Vaughn and I both reported, though, not only was the study deeply flawed, but the mainstream media completely botched their reporting on its findings.

Nevertheless, CNN media firefighter Brian Stelter tag-teamed with his CNN colleagues on Wednesday to “report” that the study supposedly proved everything they’d been saying all along about how dangerous it was for Trump to tout the drug for use in treating the Wuhan coronavirus.

But in the process of doing so, Stelter revealed the other reason he came down so hard on Trump for the anti-malarial drug’s push. The first one, as we all know, was because the drug’s success would make the president and his task force look good.

The second one, he accidentally admitted, was because he had family members who relied on it (bolded and italicized emphasis added):

… [H]ost John King declared that both the media and the White House should be more responsible in how they talk about potential cures — but only one of these is actually doing so. “That’s the point about the responsibility of our business and the president, but we can only speak, I can only speak for our business. I don’t speak for him in that. As the doctor notes, we need more data, we need more evidence. But in anxious times, people do sometimes look to people they trust for guidance, and we know there was a run on this drug.”

Stelter agreed that Trump’s advocacy of the drug was dangerous. “Yes, and the millions of Americans who use this drug for approved purposes, including my wife, people who have autoimmune issues and need this drug became worried they wouldn’t be able to get it because of the drug pushing that was happening on Fox News and from the White House podium.”

Watch Stelter make the revelation below:

You know, both of my senior citizen parents take various prescriptions for their health issues, and I certainly wouldn’t want supplies of those medications to run short. But I can’t imagine there would be any scenario in which I would actively discourage the use of a life-saving drug on the basis that 1) it would make a president of the opposing party look good and 2) concerns that it wouldn’t be available for my loved ones.

In the first case, whether or not a solution to a health crisis makes a politician look good should not be a consideration at all. The only consideration should be as to whether or not it helps patients. In the second case, the likelihood of a shortage of a drug is slim to none.

And yet Stelter has done both here. He downplayed the possibility of a life-saving treatment for a deadly virus that has hit his state particularly hard 1) because Orange Man Bad, and 2) because of personal considerations. The second maybe possibly could be understandable in the unlikely event of a drug shortage, but the first? Not ever.