Repeating the same talking points over and over again isn't helping Donald Trump to appear substantive. The coronavirus press briefing took place in the White House on Apr. 4, and it lasted for 90 grueling minutes with the president dominating much of it by making the same statements, only wording them slightly different.

Trump repeatedly kept saying, “we have to open our country again” so many times during the conference that Critic at Large for Vox  Emily Todd VanDerWerff thinks he might be stuck. Much to the chagrin of the attendees, the briefings continued to be the same even after that.

On Monday, Trump once again pointed out how awful media is while sticking to some of his same themes during the briefing. Emily noted that Trump had a very little shred of information to offer, which probably explains why he kept repeating his favorite talking points including that hydroxychloroquine, which is an anti-malaria drug can prove to be a magic bullet to combat the deadly COVID-19.

Aside from that, he also keeps saying that churches should open for Easter Sunday, making a subtle cutting remark about U.S. Vice President Mike Pence not getting enough sleep. The way Trump treats Pence, he reminds Emily of the worst boss she has ever had, who would find out one detail about each of his staff members and then grab every opportunity to put them down as long as they work for him.

In addition to Trump's usual statements, there were a few never points made during the conference. The PLOTUS said there's going to be “a lot of death" in the United States this week. He then named all the heads of leading American sports leagues.

While Trump seems to be making some new points, Emily felt she has heard them all before. To compare his Saturday performance with every other press conference, she resorted to using a clip show. While having nothing new to say during the press conferences is quite normal for Trump, he hates dead air.

The "clip-show" refers to an episode of a TV series that combines clips from different episodes, usually using a loose framing device. Clip shows are usually awful, but they are touted as a budgetary necessity.

It is easy to imagine Trump saying something like “Remember that time I said we had to open up our country again?” during a press briefing and then looking off to the side at the clip playing, allowing everyone to remember the time he said exactly the same thing. This could even come in handy in underlying the new information he has to share, Emily added.