Could This Be Why Trump Pushed Disinfectants As A Cure?

It is not clear how the topic of ingesting disinfectants came to Trump’s attention, but there is a thriving industry of snake oil salesmen who have pushed the practice for years. Now, COVID-19 has put an even brighter spotlight on these unethical operators.

- Robin Abcarian

It was one of those jaw-dropping moments we’ve come to expect from the president: “I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute,” Trump said last week during his daily press briefing.

Looking in the direction of the experts sitting against the wall to his right, he asked: “And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets inside the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.”

The uncomfortable stare of Deborah Birx, the physician who serves as the response coordinator for his Coronavirus Task Force, said it all.

The president seemed to be suggesting that doctors inject patients with household disinfectants such as bleach, which kills the virus on hard surfaces. Calls to poison control centers spiked. The manufacturers of Clorox and Lysol pleaded with the public not to ingest their products.

Trump soon claimed he was being “sarcastic,” trying to bait reporters, because, of course, when more than 50,000 of your fellow Americans have died from a little-understood new virus, and millions more are unemployed, the moment screams out for sarcasm and hostility.

Trump famously does not rely on science, nor on experts. He goes with his feelings, his gut, his “you know what,” as he said last week, pointing to his hyper coiffed head. For the last 3 and half years, we have seen that he does not read, does not study and tends to parrot what he hears on Fox News.