MSNBC has been among the news outlets broadcasting live from the White House, to which the US president returned after undergoing coronavirus treatment at the Walter Reed military hospital. The network’s hosts started exercising their tongues as soon as Trump appeared on the balcony, ripped off his mask, and saluted the Marine One helicopter that had transported him home, before wobbling back inside.

“This is a Mussolini moment. Donald Trump – who looks like he has makeup on, which means someone had to get close enough to make up his favorite orange patina – he’s standing there as if he’s a member of an old Russian Tsar family,” a news anchor, said to be Joy Reid, can be heard in the footage.