Trump and Disinfectants

During one of the White House Press Briefings, a doctor with Homeland Security was discussing the effectiveness of different disinfectants. He went on to discuss what happens "when you inject light into the mix" and talked about how quickly the virus breaks down in sunlight. After he finished talking, President Trump took the podium and began his remarks with a question. He went on to talk about the anti-viral properties of light as a disinfectant and wondered if it could be injected into the human body. The first doctor he asked didn't respond so he repeated the question to Dr. Brix who said no. That should have been that. But it wasn't. A reporter immediately claimed that the President had suggested that people inject themselves with a disinfectant like bleach. That's the story that was picked up by the press which, days later, keeps warning people "not to inject or drink bleach as the President suggested."

Here's Trump's original question:

"Supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too," he said to Bryan. "Then 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?"

Here's what he asked Dr. Brix:

"Maybe you can, maybe you can’t. I’m not a doctor. I’m like a person who has a good you-know-what," Trump said. "Deborah, have you ever heard of that? The heat and the light, relative to certain viruses, yes, but relative to this virus?"

Even if you assume that Trump switched gears from talking about light to talking about other disinfectants, there's no way to get around this being a question rather that a suggestion. What's certain is that the words, "What people need to do is inject disinfectant into themselves" did not pass the President's lips.

So how did the press get this so wrong? This is the problem with an adversarial press. The quote all comes from one White House pool reporter's statement about what Trump said. Probably this is someone who was only half-listening because he figures that nothing the President says is worth listening to. He heard the words "inject" and "disinfectant" out of context and jumped to the conclusion that the President was talking about bleach and reported that. The rest of the world's press wants to believe that the President is an idiot whose advice will kill people and repeated the misinformation.

Why keep repeating this misinformation? It's been fact-checked.

Two factors are at work here. The main fact-check was from the Daily Caller. It presented the entire quote in context and made it clear that the President did not suggest injecting bleach. But the Daily-Caller leans right. Many people dismiss their fact-checks and others don't even bother to check them. Snopes failed miserably at fact-checking the President's statement. Politifact accurately represents the exchange but only as a fact-check on using bleach to cure the virus. They completely side-stepped the question of whether the President suggested it or not. So fact-checkers are pretty useless on this.

The other factor is that the news media would have to admit that one of their own made a mistake and that President Trump did not say something dangerous. They would rather drink bleach themselves than do that. And that's the problem with an adversarial press. They won't admit when they made a mistake. Possibly most of them aren't even aware of it since most of them seem to consider listening to the President's daily briefing a waste of time.