Speaking to media on Sunday local time, the president repeatedly urged Americans to try the drug, saying, “What do they have to lose?”
“But what do I know? I’m not a doctor,” Trump said.
“If it does work, it would be a shame we did not do it early.”
He also noted again that his administration has stockpiled 29 million doses to be distributed across the United States.
While Trump said the drug “is not going to hurt” people, hydroxychloroquine has potentially harmful side effects including headaches, dizziness, stomach pain, weight loss and mood changes.
The most severe side effects, according to Australia’s Therapeutic Drugs Administration, can include cardiac toxicity potentially leading to sudden heart attacks, irreversible eye damage and severe depletion of blood sugar potentially leading to coma.
Trump’s promotion of the drug comes despite America’s top infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, saying there is nothing to suggest hydroxychloroquine has any benefit against coronavirus.
“In terms of science, I don’t think we can definitively say it works,” he told CBS.
“The data is really just at best suggestive. There have been cases that show there may be an effect and there are others to show there’s no effect.”
When a reporter tried to ask Dr Fauci about the drug at Sunday night’s press briefing, Trump stopped him from answering the question, with the president saying “you don’t have to ask the question” as he himself had answered it “15 times”.
"I answered this 15 times. You don't have to answer." — Trump prevents Dr Fauci from answering a question about hydroxychloroquine pic.twitter.com/8R1K1hDsaX
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 6, 2020
The US president was influenced by a Fox News report on 16 March that outlined a small French study where coronavirus patients were given hydroxychloroquine. Experts have warned that the study is small and lacks sufficient rigour.
