If you'd like to have a one-word answer to Trump's refusal to disavow "Warp Speed" (and the outrageously false claims made for its "progress"), or for that matter January 6th, all you need is in fact one word: Ego.
Nowhere was it better on display than just recently when he attacked Ron DeSantis, for "not waiting his turn."
This is, I remind you, the very same argument Hillary Clinton made in 2016: It was her "turn" to be President.
Well, that didn't work out so well, but the ego element was clear there as well. Email server in the bathroom anyone? A rank violation of law too, even ignoring the classified information issue, in that executive members cannot conduct business "privately" outside of the view of oversight.
But of course Hillary did, and then there's the infamous "What difference does it make (now)" line.
What drives all this? Ego.
Simply put Trump is incapable of admitting he was wrong. Yet every one of us is in fact wrong at some point in time. The best thing to do from a standpoint of progress personally is to admit failure rapidly when it becomes evident you probably are wrong, stop doing the wrong thing and do something else. That limits losses -- and as anyone who has ever made progress at anything over time knows the key is to win more than you lose.
January 6th happened because Trump could not come to the conclusion that he, personally had to get out front as early as the second week of November and do whatever he had to in order to prove he was right. Yes, that would have formally been "lawless" but only if he was wrong. If he was right then the acts of lawlessness were immaterial because the greater lawless behavior had no other redress and on balance he would have still been President. The problem with that course of action, of course, is that if he failed to prove it -- not just "show it", but prove it by irrefutable evidence -- he was going to prison forever at best and might get the federal needle.
He knew this. But he also couldn't, as Nixon did, face his ego and admit that while he might believe he won he wasn't sure enough to bet his own freedom on it. There was, in that context, only one correct action: Stand down.
But to do that you have shove you ego into the back seat.
He couldn't do it.
Likewise if he had listened to skeptics about "Warp Speed" and the fact that developing, but not conclusive evidence started to show up that there was a reasonable probability the jabs would not work, would cause great harm or both the only rational action was to force deferral until you can prove it up. But doing that required shoving your ego in the back seat and accepting the possibility you were wrong. Trump couldn't do that.
Now he's doing it again with DeSantis.
I'm no fan of DeSantis specifically because he's dangerous as he is much more-cunning and able to play for position than Trump ever was in any context. Trump's primary "weapon" historically hasn't been innovation or even triangulation; it has been pure bluster. If you want an analog it's the used-car salesman on steroids.
Most people full of ego to that extent eventually destroy themselves and any possibility of a comeback.
Hillary did and you're seeing it right now with Trump.