President Donald Trump and his team are scrambling to justify the President's recent musing as to whether a cure for the virus could come from injecting or otherwise ingesting disinfectant.
The President made the comments in a Thursday afternoon press briefing following a presentation on the ways disinfectant can kill the virus on shared surfaces like door knobs and kitchen counters.
The President wondered aloud whether or not the same disinfectant could somehow be applied to human bodies, first suggesting injection.
Watch below.
The President said:
"I see the disinfectant knocks it out in a minute, one minute. Is there a way we can do something like that? By injection inside or almost a cleaning? Cause you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it'd be interesting to check that. You're gonna have to use medical doctors, right? But it sounds interesting to me."
Efforts to spin the remarks have contradicted each other.
The President's latest Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, said Trump's remarks were taken out of context.
Trump, on the other hand, said he was being sarcastic.
Watch below.
"I was asking a sarcastic, & a very sarcastic question, to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside. But it does kill it." -- Trump tries to rewrite history, says he was speaking "sarcastically" when he mused about disinfectant injections being cure for Covid. pic.twitter.com/bWRU8EV6FZ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 24, 2020
Trump said in his defense:
"I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen...I was asking a sarcastic and a very sarcastic question, to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside."
People weren't buying it since they saw with their own eyes that Trump earnestly asked his medical experts to research the viability of doing it.
Even Bret Baier of Fox News scoffed at the idea.
Baier was asked his thoughts on the attempted defense, and at first could only muster a sigh.
He continued:
"Well, that's not how it looked in the briefing and not how it came across in the briefing. What's problematic for this President is that sometimes he goes on these riffs and when you're dealing with medical things, statements, when you're riffing from a podium, sometime that works great on other topics...but when riffing about possible cures or treatments, it didn't seem like he was coming off as sarcastic when he was talking and turning to Dr. Birx on the side...The President does get himself into these issues."
People agreed that Trump's sarcasm in the moment was nonexistent.
Others pointed out that even if Trump was telling the truth, discussing potential cures for a virus that's killed over 50 thousand Americans isn't a place for the country's leader to engage in sarcasm.
Trump was lying, yet again.
For a deeper look into Trump's White House, check out A Very Stable Genius, available here.
Jane Rosenberg
Jane Rosenberg
@arianagrande/Instagram
@arianagrande/Instagram