[forgot_my_pwd]

No one was saying to inject bleach. And Trump was probably just crudely restating some experimental treatment he had heard about in one of his many briefings. Speculative disinfectant treatments have been mentioned.

It's a very minor issue and clearly grasping for a smear by the President's opponents.

Anyone who tried to drink bleach because of Trump's offhand comments that in no way endorsed doing so is beyond help or hope.

[_bxg1]

Maybe it was an offhand remark, maybe it was sarcasm, etc. But that misses the point.

If you are the most powerful and widely-heard person in the United States, you don't get to improvise your press briefings or give dubious advice "as a joke". People often defend him with "well we've all said something stupid", or "maybe he just didn't think it all the way through". But he isn't you or me. He is the leader of the free world. He carries enormous responsibility, and he's demonstrated time and again that he can't be bothered to give a flying fart about it.

[Gollapalli]

Gosh, I don't want to get into another argument on another site about Trump, but here goes...

People like the man because he improvises his press conferences. They like him because he speaks off the cuff. Why, because it makes them like him. It makes them trust him (believe it or not). They don't trust the responsibility of leading them to someone who is slickly packaged by political consultants. Like that or not, that's democracy. So the question is who can the American people trust? Who DID they trust? (apologies for the all caps, not sure how to do italics). The answer is they trusted Donald Trump. Why? Because he speaks off the cuff. For some reason that's assuring to people. So if a few dozen people drink bleach due to misinterpreting a press conference, but the majority of a 350 some million person country are reassured by his making comments off the cuff, then what serves the greater good?

[akhilcacharya]

The majority, of course, aren’t reassured by these antics and this is why he’s wildly unpopular including in the poll linked above.

[EdwardDiego]

True, he merely suggested it _could_ be injected.

> 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.

But getting hung up on whether he gave a direct imperative to inject bleach, or merely floated it as something that could be worthwhile is a case of not seeing the wood for the trees.

It doesn't help that the Venn diagram of people who were already self-medicating (or worse, medicating their children) with bleach and people who support Trump probably has a significant intersection.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/health/drinking-bleach-au...

[forgot_my_pwd]

Nowhere did he mention bleach, this is an example of stretching being done to make it sound like he said something worse than he actually did. I believe most people see the media's making a story out of this for what it is, just another example of biased vendetta driven reporting.

[EdwardDiego]

Okay, fair point, but I don't think the usage of the term disinfectant makes the speculation any safer.

[forgot_my_pwd]

I think it was a stupid thing to say, no doubt. He often says stupid things. But he makes up for that in other areas, which is why I will vote for him.

[616c]

Oh I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, what are those things? I would like to hear them but keep in mind these are all opinions rarely (not never, I said rarely motivated b6) empirical analysis. I am curious.

[plerpin]

He mentioned disinfectant, maybe sprayed on the lungs, maybe injected.

Watch the video or read the transcript yourself.

[finger]

Parent probably means that Trump didn’t use the word “bleach” but disinfectant. There are different types of disinfectants: https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Microbiology/Book%3A_...

[bananabreakfast]

The fact that he didn't literally use the word bleach but still recommended looking into injecting disinfectants at a national emergency press conference does not make it better.

[Gollapalli]

If there were some sort of non-harmful disinfectant that could be aerosolized and didn't permanently damage lung tissue it probably would actually be quite useful (not a doctor, don't spray aerosolized lysol into your lungs).