Trump's coronavirus briefings hit a new low last week when he mused about the healing properties of injecting disinfectant.

It got so bad that even his allies and aides pushed for him to stop doing the briefings.

That led to an absolute meltdown, even by Trump standards, over the weekend.

We should root for more Twitter meltdowns, however embarrassing they are, because at least they don't endanger lives.

This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.

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President Donald Trump's Twitter meltdown over the weekend was more proof that the 45th president lacks impulse control and demonstrates at times frightening ignorance, but his online tirades are still preferable to some of his other recent communications.

The wild coronavirus briefings are getting worse

After a rare humiliation within his inner circle, the president skipped the daily coronavirus health briefings over the weekend, reportedly after being begged to dial back on the free wheeling media appearances by a number of his aides and allies.

The briefings, intended to inform the public on the federal government's response to the pandemic which has brought the country to the brink of an economic depression, have become fonts of conflicting information, self-pity, and self-congratulations — at least when Trump is at the microphone.

It's campaign season, and Trump is clearly itching to be on the road presiding over rallies before thousands of adoring followers. But that's not going to happen any time soon.

So he's used the briefings as his opportunity to attack his adversaries, brag about his administration's largely imaginary successes in fighting the virus, and generally stay front-and-center of media coverage, which is where he always needs to be.

But even for the most devoted Trumpists, there can be too much Trump.

The nadir of the Trump-corona Show was last Thursday, when Trump mused about the possible healing powers of injecting bleach into the human body.

The president told a national audience: "I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute — one minute — and is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it'd be interesting to check that. So you're going to have to use medical doctors with — but it sounds interesting to me."

Though the usual Trump apologists in conservative media claimed he had been misquoted, Trump himself debunked that claim by saying he was being "sarcastic."

"I was asking a sarcastic, and a very sarcastic question to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside," Trump said Friday. "But it does kill it, and it would kill it on the hands. That would make things much better. That was done in the form of a sarcastic question to the reporters."

Jokes typically fail when they have to be explained (or when they lack punchlines). And Trump has a penchant for retroactively declaring something he said is "a joke" when it's too absurd for all but his most cynical supporters to defend.

After five years of the Trump Show, most of us are numb to his relentless self-promotion and attacks on anyone he deems his enemy. They're needless distractions during public health briefings, but they're not a threat to public health.

In contrast, his extemporaneous thought bubbles are genuine threats, as partially evidenced by the over 100 calls to Maryland's coronavirus hotline asking if the president's disinfectant cure was a good idea.

Twitter tirades are embarrassing, but they beat the alternative

The disinfectant fiasco was enough for Trump's inner circle to suggest a self-benching over the weekend.

Trump tweeted Saturday that the briefings intended to reassure the public during a time of historic crisis, but which he had instead used as free publicity, were "Not worth the time & effort!!"

Without his daily platform to spread misinformation — intentional or otherwise — Trump took to Twitter and put on a master class in metaphorically declaring himself "not owned," despite all evidence to the contrary. No one was spared. He not only went after the typically Trump-friendly Fox News, but also the generally pro-Trump Wall Street Journal editorial page.

He also went after the "Noble Prize" committee in a series of tweets for bestowing awards on reporters for their "Russia, Russia, Russia" coverage.

Most people fairly assumed he meant "Nobel," which does not have a journalism award and hasn't given any awards to reporters who covered the Mueller investigation. For good measure, the free speech-loathing Trump called for "all the great lawyers out there" to join him in suing "all, including the FAKE NEWS ORGANIZATIONS."

He'd later delete these tweets, and again claim he was being sarcastic.

"Does anybody get the meaning of what a so-called Noble (not Nobel) Prize is, especially as it pertains to Reporters and Journalists? Noble is defined as, "having or showing fine personal qualities or high moral principles and ideals," the self-declared very stable genius tweeted.

Trump returned to his coronavirus briefing platform on Monday, limiting himself to such patently absurd statements as "you would have been at war with North Korea if I wasn't president" and boasting of "the greatest economy in the history of the world" before he had to deal with an actual crisis.

It's a shame, but hardly surprising, that Trump couldn't stay away from the briefings. His screaming Twitter tantrums are national embarrassments, but they do less damage than his politicized, fact-bereft coronavirus briefings.

Who knows if he'll again retreat to Twitter, or return to the daily spittle-fest that was ostensibly a public service, or some combination of the two. But for the health of the American people, it'd be better if he stayed away from the podium.