FALSEHOOD #26: Biden falsely claimed that Trump told people to drink bleach.

Joe Biden and mainstream media outlets claimed that Trump told people to drink bleach.

Biden said that Trump, in reference to addressing potential COVID-19 treatments, told people that “maybe if you drank bleach you may be okay.”

EXPLANATION: Trump never told people to ingest the bleach. He was interested in the possibility of scientists researching a way to safely administer disinfectants in the body to combat coronavirus.

He never said ‘bleach’, nor did he recommend anyone drink it.

During an April 23, 2020 briefing, William Bryan, the undersecretary for science and technology at the Department of Homeland Security, presented a study demonstrating that sunlight and cleaning agents effectively killed the coronavirus on surfaces.

After the presentation, Trump said: “So, supposedly 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? And then I see the disinfectant, which 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.”

There was no mentioning of drinking bleach.

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SOURCE

Calefati, J. (2020, July 11). On COVID-19, Donald Trump said that “maybe if you drank bleach you may be okay.” Politifact. Retrieved October 27, 2022, from https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jul/11/joe-biden/no-trump-didnt-tell-americans-infected-coronavirus/