Recently Donald Trump, during a White House briefing, made a comment about the coronavirus, light and disinfectants that was quite unclearly worded. The media, celebrities and big social media influencers jumped to the opportunity to claim that Trump had suggested injecting bleach into the body in order to cure the coronavirus.
Snopes.com, a once neutral fact-checking site for urban legends and claims, has in recent years for some reason contracted a really bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, and their entire platform has become pretty much nothing but an anti-Trump and anti-conservative mouthpiece, where they distort facts and claims to defend far-left Democrat politicians, and who have in fact become outright activists fighting against "pro-Trump" organizations to have them deplatformed.
So how did they tackle with the claim "U.S. President Donald Trump suggested during a White House briefing that injecting disinfectants could treat COVID-19"?
Rather obviously they classified it as "true". Of course.
They quoted the official transcript of the briefing. Notice how they decided to emphasize it:
Trump does have the really bad habit of making unclear statements sometimes. I don't think anybody denies that, and it's not a very controversial claim to make. This is no exception.
Here, if you listen or read what he said, I think it becomes quite clear what he actually meant. Let me quote that entire thing again, but this time emphasizing what I think he actually was talking about:
I think it's quite clear that he was talking about using light to disinfect, not about some liquid disinfectants. I think what he meant becomes clear when you pay attention to the whole context, which I emphasized above.
But of course Snopes isn't interested in that.
If this had been uttered by for example Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, I strongly believe that Snopes would have declared the claim like "U.S. President Barack Obama suggested during a White House briefing that injecting disinfectants could treat COVID-19" as "false", or at a very minimum as "mixed" or "unclear". Most probably "false", and they would have used the same argument as I did above.
Snopes.com, a once neutral fact-checking site for urban legends and claims, has in recent years for some reason contracted a really bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome, and their entire platform has become pretty much nothing but an anti-Trump and anti-conservative mouthpiece, where they distort facts and claims to defend far-left Democrat politicians, and who have in fact become outright activists fighting against "pro-Trump" organizations to have them deplatformed.
So how did they tackle with the claim "U.S. President Donald Trump suggested during a White House briefing that injecting disinfectants could treat COVID-19"?
Rather obviously they classified it as "true". Of course.
They quoted the official transcript of the briefing. Notice how they decided to emphasize it:
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 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.
Trump does have the really bad habit of making unclear statements sometimes. I don't think anybody denies that, and it's not a very controversial claim to make. This is no exception.
Here, if you listen or read what he said, I think it becomes quite clear what he actually meant. Let me quote that entire thing again, but this time emphasizing what I think he actually was talking about:
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 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.
I think it's quite clear that he was talking about using light to disinfect, not about some liquid disinfectants. I think what he meant becomes clear when you pay attention to the whole context, which I emphasized above.
But of course Snopes isn't interested in that.
If this had been uttered by for example Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, I strongly believe that Snopes would have declared the claim like "U.S. President Barack Obama suggested during a White House briefing that injecting disinfectants could treat COVID-19" as "false", or at a very minimum as "mixed" or "unclear". Most probably "false", and they would have used the same argument as I did above.
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