Four years ago, the media birthed one of the biggest fictions that it pushed during the COVID-19 pandemic: that Donald Trump told Americans to inject themselves with bleach. He did no such thing, but the desperate Biden campaign wants you to think so.
Four years ago today, Trump told Americans to inject bleach on national television pic.twitter.com/9VdGe9hn3w
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) April 23, 2024
The false claim originated from the White House Coronavirus Task Force Briefing on April 23, 2020. During the briefing, Trump and others discussed possible COVID-19 treatments, including UV light treatments. The portion of the quote featured in the video from Biden’s campaign is in bold.
THE PRESIDENT: 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. So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that 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, and I think you said you’re going to test that too. It sounds interesting.
ACTING UNDER SECRETARY WILLIAM BRYAN: We’ll get to the right folks who could.
THE PRESIDENT: Right. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. 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 would be interesting to check that. So, that, you’re going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds — 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 — that’s pretty powerful.
As you can see, Trump wasn’t talking about bleach. He was talking about what is known as blood irradiation therapy — which can be done intravenously. The clip that the Biden campaign shared is absurdly out of context.
Related: Biden Campaign Repeatedly Uses Altered Videos to Attack Trump
So where did the idea that Trump told people to inject themselves with bleach come from? The concept actually came from a reporter later in the same briefing.
Q: But I — just, can I ask about — the President mentioned the idea of cleaners, like bleach and isopropyl alcohol you mentioned. There’s no scenario that that could be injected into a person, is there? I mean —
ACTING UNDER SECRETARY BRYAN: No, I’m here to talk about the findings that we had in the study. We won’t do that within that lab and our lab. So —
THE PRESIDENT: It wouldn’t be through injection. We’re talking about through almost a cleaning, sterilization of an area. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t work. But it certainly has a big effect if it’s on a stationary object.
The transcript shows that it was a reporter who connected bleach to injections, not Trump, and Trump corrected the reporter. That never stopped the media from reporting that Trump suggested that people inject themselves with bleach, and Biden has been pushing this long-debunked lie for years. Why? Because he wants to distract from his own terrible record with COVID.