The Hoax
Trump Told Americans To Inject Or Drink Bleach To Treat COVID
During a press briefing on COVID-19 on April 23, 2020, President Donald Trump made comments about the potential use of disinfectants and UV light in treating the virus. Media platforms quickly spread the claim that Trump suggested people drink bleach or ingest disinfectants to cure COVID-19.
What Really Happened
Trump Referred To UV Light As A Disinfectant
During the press briefing, Trump made off-the-cuff remarks about the possibility of using UV light inside the body to kill the virus. In fact, throughout the briefing, light as a “disinfectant” was mentioned 21 times by the scientists– Dr. Bryan and Dr. Birx (COVID experts)– and by Trump. Trump began speculating whether UV light could be brought into the body to kill the virus, as was being studied at the time by several companies. Trump speculated whether UV light- as a disinfectant- could be brought inside the body to kill COVID-19. However, this was more of a question of whether it could be studied.
Nowhere in these comments did Trump suggest injecting or drinking bleach as the media or Biden claims.
Evidence
The transcript and video of the press briefing show Trump asking questions and musing about possible treatments that could be studied, but not advising anyone to ingest or inject bleach as Biden and the media want you to believe. Various fact-checking organizations, including Politifact and WRAL News have also debunked this claim.
Below is the presser trascript from TrumpWhiteHouseArchives.org:
DR. BRYAN: “If you look at the fourth line, you inject summer — the sunlight into that. You inject UV rays into that. The same effects on line two — as 70 to 35 degrees with 80 percent humidity on the surface. And look at line four, but now you inject the sun. The half-life goes from six hours to two minutes. That’s how much of an impact UV rays has on the virus.”
Moments later…
TRUMP: “Thank you very much. So I asked Bill a question that probably some of you are thinking of, if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. Suppose we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the
body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. (To
Bryan) And I think you said you’re going to test that, too. Sounds
interesting, right?”
DR. BRYAN: We’ll get to the right folks who could.
TRUMP: “Right. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that, so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful.”
*UV light was already being tested as a viral disinfectant at the time by Aytu Biosciences. You can read more about that here.
Hoaxology | How The Hoax Was Made
Here’s how this hoax was made.
Selective Editing
Selective editing allows the media to remove the context and assign new meaning. The media created and perpetuated this hoax by selectively focusing on a small portion of Trump’s comments, ignoring the broader context. By isolating his speculative remarks about UV light, disinfectants, and preceding comments by Dr. Bryan, the media stripped away the surrounding discussion that provided clarity and context. Further, the video clip shows Trump turning to Dr. Bryan and asking him if injecting disinfectant can be studied. This selective reporting allowed the media to attribute a misleading and sensational interpretation to Trump’s comments, suggesting he advised people to drink, inject, or ingest bleach.
Out-of-Context Quotes
The phrase “injection inside” was lifted from Trump’s broader comments, completely detaching it from the context of UV light technology. This distorted the meaning of his words entirely.
Evidence of Media Perpetuating the Drinking Bleach Hoax
Politico using a misleading headline to depict Trump encouraging drinking bleach: “It’s been exactly one year since Trump suggested injecting bleach. We’ve never been the same.”
Featured image via public domain.
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