President Donald Trump used his go-to excuse on Friday afternoon to walk back his astonishing suggestion that people inject disinfectant to cure COVID-19.
“I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen,” Trump said in the Oval Office, according to a pool report.
When asked if he was encouraging such use of disinfectant, the President replied “Of course not.”
He said using disinfectant on one’s hands “could have a very good effect.”
It was Trump’s effort to do damage control after arguing during a press conference the previous day that because “disinfectant knocks [COVID-19] out in a minute,” there should be “a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning.”
Dr. Deborah Birx, a prominent member of the White House COVID-19 task force, looked positively aghast at his comments while listening in the background, and Reckitt Benckiser, the producer of Lysol, had to release a statement emphatically urging people to not stick their product into the bloodstream.
The “sarcasm” defense has become a familiar refrain from the President over the past several years. It’s a card he’s played more than once after drawing controversy over a particularly shocking remark or claim.
Watch Trump below:
President says he meant UV and bleach therapy "sarcastically", was goofing on "extraordinarily hostile" media in the room. pic.twitter.com/Q9gzo2heCD
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) April 24, 2020
bwaahh hahh hah! Best laugh I’ve had in a while!
Let’s give him that one if he’ll give us “the Electoral College was just being sarcastic on 11/8/2016.”
Alrighty then…I’m so relieved that it was just all of our mistake for not understanding his greatness and humor.
That “sarcastically” excuse is getting old! How many times has he tried that in the last 3 1/2 years?
Almost all of us know how to interpret what another is saying by what they say and how they say it, as well as seeking validation of the comment.
Except Trump.