Trump Did NOT Tell Everyone to Drink Bleach
DONALD TRUMP IS PROFOUNDLY IGNORANT about some of the basic facts of chemistry, biology, physics, (not to mention every other science)…and he has a very bad habit of “thinking out loud” on national television in a manner that creates confusion in his audience…the American people.
I have watched the film clip in which he purportedly suggested that people could inject Lysol or bleach into the lungs very carefully, over and over again.
I had to throw up twice while watching this segment. Watching Donald Trump makes me throw up every time I see him. It’s an involuntary reaction. Seeing Donald Trump or hearing his voice makes me nauseous.
Nevertheless, Donald Trump NEVER said that people should try injecting Lysol or bleach into their bodies.
He ASKED one of his “medical experts” a series of questions.
He asked whether ultraviolet light applied externally or internally to the body which is, of course, clearly ridiculous and probably 100% fatal if it were done intravenously.
‘The medical “expert,” obviously pandering to Trump’s vanity, answered the question in a manner that did not automatically reject the insane idea of somehow using UV light inside the lungs.
Then he said, “And then I see the disinfectant….that knocks it out in a minute and IS THERE A WAY THAT WE COULD DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT BY INJECTION INSIDE…OR…OR ALMOST A CLEANING BECAUSE YOU SEE IT GETS IN THE LUNGS AND YOU SEE IT DOES A TREMENDOUS NUMBER ON THE LUNGS, SO IT WOULD BE INTERESTING TO CHECK THAT. SO THAT YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO USE MEDICAL DOCTORS BUT IT SOUNDS INTERESTING TO ME.”
He never used the word “bleach.” He never used the word “Lysol.” He never suggested that anyone should try to do this on their own, never saying that anyone should drink bleach or inject it into their bodies.
HE ASKED A REALLY STUPID QUESTION but that was all he did. He asked a question.
Here’s the problem with that: we are not accustomed to watching the president of the United States thinking out loud and asking questions on national television.
Think about it. Until this clown took over, presidents have never asked questions in public. The president of the United States is the Ultimate Answer Man. Presidents answer questions. They don’t ask them.
(They may have occasionally asked rhetorical questions but that’s exactly what they were, rhetorical devices. They would always then go on to answer the question they just asked. Occasionally, during a press conference, a president might ask a reporter to clarify a question….but that’s it.)
Presidents don’t ask questions in front of the whole world. It makes them look weak, ill-informed and, frankly, stupid ….and every politician knows this.
The brand manager for Lysol jumped all over this. Maybe Trump mentioned Lysol at some other point in the press conference (I refuse to subject myself to the entire recording, thank you very much,) If he did, he’s even more ignorant than I fear he is. If he didn’t, Lysol just scooped up a few million dollars worth of free publicity by asking people not to inject or drink their product.
However, the hue and cry over this snippet from a two-hour press conference is all out of proportion.and gives the incumbent another cudgel with which he can thrash the news media.
Trump simply didn’t say what everyone said he said.
He did, however, suggest the absurd idea that injecting a disinfectant might help people suffering from the Coronvirus….and perhaps the people in the news media were concerned about the possibility that some of Trump’s fans might actually try this at home, fearing that they might just be stupid enough to do it. Let’s hope those individuals – the ones who actually try drinking or injecting bleach – haven’t made their contribution to the gene pool yet
Trump deserves all the ridicule he’s getting for being so ignorant that he would even make the suggestion of injecting a disinfectant into the human body. Disinfectants are almost exclusively used as topical preparations, to be used ON the body, not in it.
At one point in the clip, Trump says that’s he’s not a doctor. That’s a fact…one of the few indisputable facts that Trump has ever uttered…and he should give us all a break by not trying to play doctor on national television.
Responding to the adverse reaction his comment, Trump now claims that he was being sarcastic.
That’s another outright lie. He was quite obviously being very serious and not sarcastic at all. We all know what Trump looks and sounds like when he’s being sarcastic and he wasn’t displaying those traits in that segment of the broadcast.
Donald Trump has no sense of humor. He’s very funny but it is an inadvertent funniness.
One of the characteristics that all great comedians have in common is empathy….and Trump doesn’t have any.
This may be giving aid and comfort to the enemy – and Trump is the enemy of everything good about America…but let me give you some advice, Mr. President:
Stop trying to be funny. You’re no good at it and you never will be. You have terrible timing and two tin ears. You’re a joke but you are not a funny man.
That said, will you all anti-Trumpersl please check your facts before you jump on these god damned stupid fucking bandwagons. You make the rest of us look like idiots by association.
Ron Powell
04/24/2020 @ 5:26 pm
You’re right! He didn’t say “drink disinfectant”.
However, he did say that “…injection.. sounds interesting…”, and it wasn’t within the context of a query..
Re Trump “thinking out loud”:
He lacks the capacity to think analytically or critically. Saying that he is thinking out loud, is giving him more credit than he deserves…
Bitey
04/24/2020 @ 7:51 pm
Excuse me, Alan. Who said that he told people to drink bleach?
Incidentally, he did not specify which day of the week, or with which hand one should inject, or otherwise manage to get various cleaning solutions into themselves. Is there another defense coming?
Bitey
04/24/2020 @ 8:04 pm
“Trump deserves all the ridicule he’s getting for being so ignorant that he would even make the suggestion of injecting a disinfectant into the human body…”—Alan Milner
So, you think he’s entitled to ridicule for this. Here’s the thing. There is zero doubt in my mind that Trump would ever try this particular remedy. The suggestion is entirely for propaganda purposes. That said, Trump is just saying “fuck you” to anyone stupid enough to follow his suggestion. Furthermore, “drink bleach” is an old way to say the same thing, just not for propaganda reasons. “Drink bleach” isn’t so much a quote of him as it is a “fuck you” back.
Also, Trump has already been pushing the hydroxychloroquine for weeks, and one person died from its use. Oh, by the way, that person drank it after dissolving it in water.
Now that I think of it, Trump once suggested that we drop a nuclear weapon on a hurricane. The “suggestion” shows a massive disregard for human life, and animal and plant life. Are you going to say that Trump actually suggested dropping the weapon IN a hurricane rather than ON it? Are you fucking kidding me?
Koshersalaami
04/26/2020 @ 12:23 am
In the fairly short period since Trump said this, NY City poison control reports a elevated number of incidents involving disinfectant and bleach products.
One can approach what Trump said in one of two legitimate ways. One is that it was irresponsible and would inevitably lead to exactly this. I could call him on that because he does have followers that would adopt his logic – and already have – but I don’t think that’s the problem. What I can mainly call him on is being an educated adult in the world’s most responsibility-laden position not knowing that what you can do on the outside of your body often doesn’t apply to the inside of your body. Do you think he uses neosporin on the inside of his body? Conceptually, this sounds like an idea coming from a six year old, albeit a six year old who’s actually thinking. But he isn’t six, he’s the President of the United States. Yes, he was thinking out loud. Clearly that’s what he was doing. How could he not know the answer to his question? If microbes could safely be killed by injecting disinfectant, wouldn’t we be doing it by now? Does he not know what antibodies are? Does he have a clue as to how vaccines work? Does he know that there are foreign bodies, particularly bacteria, working inside of us that we need and can’t afford to kill? Has he never heard of a probiotic product? Has he never heard of anyone committing suicide with bleach?
He’s the President. He’s supposed to know common stuff.
How old was anyone here when they knew or figured out that putting a substance like Lysol into a hypodermic and injecting it into your bloodstream would be a really bad idea? For God’s sake, how incurious could the man have been as a child?
And how could Mitch McConnell allow this guy to run the country without thinking and with no consequences for not thinking?
Yes, there are people that stupid, and a lot of them are his supporters.
So he didn’t say to people that they should inject disinfectant into their bloodstreams. How would you have reacted if a Democratic politician suggested this? What do you think would have happened to Joe Biden if he’d said this during the early primaries? Are we really going to agree with the press and hold the President to a lower standard?
Koshersalaami
04/26/2020 @ 12:26 am
Just to be clear, if I agree with something the President says or does and he is attacked for it, I have no problem with defending him. I’ve done it at least twice.
Bitey
04/26/2020 @ 1:05 pm
I was going to point out that calls to poison control have ticked up. I see KS has already done so. From that uptick, one should reason that the protests against Trump’s irresponsible use of this position is doing as some predicted that it would, causing harm. It doesn’t take too much to arrive at that likely conclusion.
In the same sense, Trump was doing harm long before he suggested ingesting bleach in the form of a question, and by use of the word “inject”. When this irresponsible man-child gave his administration’s recommendation about wearing masks, and then immediately said that he would not do so, he was doing harm. He immediately undermined his own administration’s efforts. Trump doesn’t understand leadership. If an initiative is going to be successful, it most especially must be endorsed by him. If he openly opposes it, it makes zero sense to make it public. What Trump doesn’t get is, he did not have to comply with the suggestion. All he had to do was publicize it. What he did off-camera, privately, would never be kn own.
While I agree with Kosher’s response, I will groom one aspect. The public to which Trump reaches and owes responsible conduct is not divided between supporters and opponents. Most of the public doesn’t consume news, and is not political. The ones to be concerned about are not making determinations based upon their feelings about Trump other than the fact that he is a public personality. This is how rags like National Enquirer can manage to maintain influence. Far too many people believe that false statements can not be made publicly. There are people who believe that when consumer products make claims about their own products, that the statements are true, by necessity. In political ads, it is now required that messages approved by the campaigns of candidates actually have the candidates say so in the ad, because the power of suggestion is far, far greater than the receiver’s aware choice. The ones to be concerned about do not have to be Republican, or stupid, or even children. The ones to be concerned about are likely to be desperate, and that will skew toward the poor.
Also, to Milner in particular. If you were teaching a child to not play with a handgun, the proper way to warn against it would be to say, don’t play with any weapon, and consider all weapons to be loaded. Never point a weapon at yourself, or anyone else, even when you know (believe) it to be unloaded. For the slightly more advanced, it is a common warning to never, ever have ammunition in the same room when you are cleaning a weapon. The reason is that if one makes sure that all ammunition is not in the room while cleaning the weapon, accidental deaths from accidental discharges are eliminated. To quibble over whether or not the gun is loaded, or over whether or not ammunition is in the room while cleaning it is analogous to quibbling over whether or not Trump said to “drink” bleach. By suggesting/questioning about the efficacy of injection of cleaning products, from his bully pulpit, was effectively playing with a loaded weapon. At best, he was being irresponsible in a manner for which there is ample warning and training about possible adverse consequences.
Milner, I have been told that you are driving people away from this site. Now, I get it.
Bitey
04/28/2020 @ 7:23 pm
I guess the CDC didn’t “check their facts.” They issued a warning against…wait fo it…drinking bleach. So did Joe Biden. So did the FDA. The list is long. Very long. That bit about “anti Trumpers” making you “look stupid”, well, that looks kinda stupid, don’t you think?
Alan Milner
05/16/2020 @ 12:22 pm
Just to be clear, this is not a liberal website or a conservative one. If I am driving people away from the site because I expressed an opinion with which they disagree, have a nice day and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
I am – and always have been – a radical socialist but that doesn’t mean that I am going to jump on every bandwagon, especially when the wagon is heading in the wrong direction.
As the editor of this site, I never impose my opinions on anyone else. I never edit anything for contact, and I have only deleted one post since starting this site, and that one was posted by my partner Robert Pannier over what should have been a private difference of opinion.
I don’t believe in censorship for any reason. I offer this site for anyone to express any opinions in a safe space…but I expect the same courtesy.
When I publish something as Alan Milner, it is my opinion. If you leave the site because you disagree with my opinion, that actions says more about you than it does about me.
In fact, Trump did not tell people to drink bleach or irradiate themselves.He asked two inappropriate questions that a president of the United States should never have asked in public. In fact, presidents NEVER ask questions in public unless they are rhetorical devices.
The fact that Trump’s followers are stupid enough to drink bleach if he asks a question about whether that would be a good idea, that speaks to their stupidity, not Trump’s.
Donald Trump is a very intelligent man…but he is also very opinionated and very ignorant. That’s a terrible combination of traits because it will lead from one disaster to anoather
Bitey
05/18/2020 @ 9:13 pm
“If I am driving people away from the site because I expressed an opinion with which they disagree, have a nice day…”
It’s easy to win an argument when you set up a straw man such as this, and knock it over. As it applies to me, Alan, it is not your opinion that matters. What I find insulting is that you can’t tell the difference between your opinion, and facts. This post is a perfect example. Your title is bullshit. No one claimed that Trump told them to drink bleach. You created a straw man. Furthermore, the notion that someone is reacting to your opinion…is also a straw man. Finally, when you are called on a fact, in this case, the confusion of Iowa with Ohio, you were quite flippant about it. That’s fine. It’s really a small fact, and fair game to have fun with it, but in THIS POST, you have a hissy fit about factual accuracy. “…will you all anti-Trumpersl please check your facts before you jump on these god damned stupid fucking bandwagons. You make the rest of us look like idiots by association…” In this quote, it seems that you do care about accuracy, and are not concerned with calling Senator Grassley the Senator from Ohio, or that such an error makes us “all look bad.” It’s a horseshit double standard…not an opinion. This is more like conduct than just diversity of opinion. None of the things you cited were accurate as facts, nor do they serve as opinions. They were just excuses for behavior. That’s why I am leaving this place. I can’t speak for anyone else. But if you care one scintilla about accuracy as you claim, don’t give yourself that bullshit excuse. I come for a diversity of opinion. I don’t care for the self serving, back-stabby bullshit…like this post was.
Bitey
05/18/2020 @ 9:44 pm
Just corn shits and giggles, here is another one for free.
“…Donald Trump is a very intelligent man…but he is also very opinionated and very ignorant. That’s a terrible combination of traits because it will lead from one disaster to anoather…”
Wrong. Donald Trump is dumb as a stump. He is, as you say, ignorant, which is just one aspect of his stupidity. He is also profoundly dishonest, which I offer is yet another aspect of his stupidity. Most importantly, Donald Trump shows over and over that he lacks critical thinking skills. He demonstrated one very recently when he said that , “…Don’t forget, we have more cases than anybody in the world. But why? Because we do more testing,” Trump said. “When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn’t do any testing, we would have very few cases. They [the media] don’t want to write that…”
Trump burped up this nonsense 3 days ago. In that quote he demonstrates the lack of ability to understand causality. If you believe him, Trump thinks in a specific way that toddlers are tested for in psychology and cognition tests. The ability to understand the linkage between occurrence and the perception of the existence starts in humans while they are still crawling. You can even find examples of tests like these on YouTube with children…and with cats and dogs.
Now, you might take the position that Trump does understand that the tests do not create the occurrence of the cases, but he is just saying it so that he can fool others into thinking so. That would not help him on the intelligence thing. It assumes that he could trick otherwise normal adults into not understanding what an 18 month old child could understand. That’s dumb. Trump is not an intelligent man. It can be observed. I do not say that because I oppose his politics. There are people for whom I oppose their politics much more, but I don’t think they are idiots. Trump is an idiot. Plain and simple.
Bitey
05/18/2020 @ 10:01 pm
This is an example of what I mean about Trump’s level of thinking. And yes, if Trump were watching this take place, I believe he could pass it, but he’s 73. Trump lacks the ability when the test is conceptual, like testing and the occurrence of coronavirus cases. This is occurring to what he has said. And if he actually does know the difference, he believes that it is persuadable to a nation of adults, that his logic is valid, when it would take a child of this age to be confused about such a thing. Trump is ignorant. Trump is also dumb.
05/18/2020 @ 11:44 am
“As the editor of this site, I never impose my opinions on anyone else. I never edit anything for contact, and I have only deleted one post since starting this site, and that one was posted by my partner Robert Pannier over what should have been a private difference of opinion.”
Well… Just serendipitously I decided to stop by and read comments and found this total BS. Alan, YOU might not have deleted posts and comments but SOMEONE sure as hell has. I posted a post and comments about your “buddy’s” documented history of pedophilia and “Poof” they were gone. Funny how that works, huh?
So might I suggest that you get down from your high horse and shovel up some of that horse shit you are spreading.