Trump is lying when he says he was being 'sarcastic' when he talked about injecting disinfectant

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Trump said he was "sarcastic" about injecting sanitizer 0:33

(CNN) - The President of the USA Donald Trump lied on Friday when he said he was being "sarcastic" when he asked medical experts Thursday to investigate the possibility of injecting disinfectant as a treatment for the coronavirus.

Doctors and the company that makes Lysol and Dettol warned that injecting or ingesting disinfectants is dangerous. But when Trump was asked about the comments during the signing of a bill on Friday, he said: "I was sarcastically asking journalists like you a question to see what would happen."

Then he suggested that he was talking about disinfectants that can be rubbed safely on people's hands. And then he went back to the sarcasm explanation, saying it was "a very sarcastic question for journalists in the room about the disinfectant inside."

A journalist said he had asked his medical experts to investigate him. Trump replied: "No, no, no, no, to see if the sun and the hand sanitizer are or not, but if the sun can help us or not."

Facts First: Trump was not being "sarcastic" Thursday when he raised the possibility of injecting disinfectant. There was simply no indication that he was talking about anything less than serious. He was also wrong on Friday when he denied asking medical experts to "verify" the idea of ​​disinfecting injections; I was looking at them at the time. And he didn't mention the hands during his comments Thursday.

This is what Trump said Thursday as he looked in the direction of the coronavirus response coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx, and the Department of Homeland Security science official, Bill Bryan: "And then I see the disinfectant, which removes it in one minute. One minute. And somehow we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see that it enters the lungs and does a large number in the lungs. Then it would be interesting to check that. So, that, they will have to go to doctors. But it sounds, I find it interesting. "

What happened on thursday

Bryan, acting deputy secretary of science and technology for the Department of Homeland Security, described the tests in which he said disinfectants like chlorine and isopropyl alcohol quickly killed the coronavirus on surfaces. Bryan also spoke about how the virus was negatively affected by exposure to UV rays and higher temperatures.

Trump first spoke about the possibility of using light as a treatment for people who already have the coronavirus, reflecting that a "very powerful light" could be used to "hit the body" or be carried "inside the body ... either through of the skin or in some other way ”. Trump said Bryan had said he was going to "prove that." (Experts said this idea doesn't make sense; when Trump asked Birx if he had heard of the virus-related use of heat or light, she replied, "Not as a treatment.")

Bryan said he would "reach the right people" who could do the tests. Trump then began his comments on the disinfectant, which he concluded by saying "I find it interesting."

A journalist reminded him on Friday that he had been looking at Birx when he made these comments Thursday, Trump said he was looking at Bryan, Birx, but also at "some of the reporters." In fact, the video shows that he was looking in Birx and Bryan's direction for almost all of their reflections on disinfectants, looking at journalists only very briefly.

Later in the Thursday briefing, when a reporter asked Bryan if there was any scenario where household cleaners could inject themselves into a person, Bryan said, "No, I'm here to talk about the findings we had in the study. . We will not do that within that laboratory and our laboratory. " Trump then chimed in: “It wouldn't be through the injection. We are talking about almost a cleaning, sterilization of an area. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't work. But it certainly has a great effect if it is on a stationary object. ”

So: Trump can argue that he withdrew his comments during the briefing. But even in this more cautious follow-up, he offered no indication that it had been anything less than completely serious.

Different turn

The White House's opening statement on Friday about the disinfectant comments did not say the president had been sarcastic. He only claimed that the media had taken him out of context.

Trump has a history of falsely claiming that serious but controversial comments had been sarcasm. For example, he has insisted that his famous 2016 request "Russia, if you are listening," for Russia to help him get emails from Hillary Clinton, was "sarcastic" and making a "joke."

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