Teenagers Know to Keep Their Stories Straight, but President Trump Does Not: The Sad Case of the Injecting Disinfectants Briefing

Coronavirus Task Force Briefing

The President of the United States should know how to keep his story straight. After all, any self-respecting teenager knows that, if Mom catches you, you had better tell a consistent story:

MOM: Your curfew was at eight o’clock, so why are you walking in the door at ten? 
PAT: Well, Mom, I told you that I was going to Chris’s house to work on our science project. 
MOM: Try again. I called Chris’s mom, and you weren’t there. [Spoken in full Mom Voice.]
PAT: Oh, that’s right, I went for a walk in the park, and the stars were so pretty that I lost track of time. 
MOM: You lost track of time looking at stars outdoors in a thunderstorm? [Mom’s patented Sarcastic Voice.] And yet you walked in the door a few minutes later, perfectly dry? Try again. 
PAT: Mom, I’m hurt that you don’t trust me. [Sobs insincerely.]

Obviously unprepared for the Coronavirus Task Force Briefing last Thursday, President Donald Trump asked a series of questions about the wisdom of injecting disinfectants into coronavirus patients and shining ultraviolet light inside their bodies. Noticing that Trump’s suggestions were dangerous and irresponsible, his critics have been jumping all over him. Never one to admit that he was wrong, President Trump, joined by his conservative enablers, has offered various excuses, none of them consistent with the others, and none of them consistent with what happened.

In the Pat-Mom dialogue above, Pat’s mother taught an important lesson. That lesson is simple: if you tell transparent lies, you’re going to get caught, and you will get caught faster if your lies contradict one another. President Trump needs to learn the same lesson. Also, just like Mom, the voters can figure out the truth faster than you think.

Trump Asked About Injecting Disinfectants
As I discussed in my last post, President Trump asked, among other bizarre things:

“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.”

Bleach and disinfectant manufacturers responded quickly, for example, the manufacturer of Lysol said this: “We must be clear that under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route).”

Donald Trump Could Learn Something about Good Public Speaking from Public Relations People: Truth and the Coronavirus

Basic public relations technique would require President Trump to immediately retract his statement and warn people not to ingest or inject disinfectants into themselves. The story would have been over in a day. Instead, we heard a bizarre series of implausible, inconsistent stories. Let’s look at them.

Story #1: The White House Said Trump Was Quoted Out of Context
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said this:

“President Trump has repeatedly said that Americans should consult with medical doctors regarding coronavirus treatment, a point that he emphasized again during yesterdays' briefing statement. Leave it to the media to irresponsibly take President Trump out of context and run with negative headlines.”

Similarly, Charlie Kirk, leader of the conservative group Turning Point USA, tweeted that:

“It’s ridiculous:
“The mainstream media is more upset about an out of context comment about disinfectant than they are about Joe Biden’s sexual assault story
“That tells you everything you need to know about the dishonest press
“They hate Trump more than they love America”

My post yesterday quoted the entire exchange just to make sure that my readers could see Trump’s context. He did not simply make an offhand comment; he talked about disinfectant and light injections at some length. Still, if he wanted to claim he was being quoted out of context, he should have stuck with that story. Instead, his story quickly changed:

Story #2: Trump Said He Was Being Sarcastic
On Friday, the day after his disastrous press briefing, Trump said that he didn’t mean that people should ask for disinfectant injections; he was just being sarcastic to provoke reporters:

“I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters just like you, just to see what would happen. I was asking a sarcastic and a very sarcastic question to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside. But it does kill it and it would kill it on the hands, and it would make things much better.”

Trump’s tone of voice, facial expressions, and phrasings did not strike me as sarcastic at all. When I’m sarcastic (a temptation I try to avoid), I usually put a sneer on my face and in my voice. Furthermore, he addressed the question to Acting Under Secretary William Bryan, not a reporter. The Annenberg School’s website FactCheck.org also sounds doubtful: “There’s no clear indication in his remarks that Trump was joking, either in his initial comment or when he returned to the topic later in the briefing. But we’ll leave it for readers to judge.”

Still, Story #2 is a shift from Story #1. It’s one thing for Trump to say that he was taken out of context. But, if he was quoted inaccurately, how can he then say that he meant what he said, albeit jokingly? It is remotely conceivable that he was being sarcastic, but this is not the same as Story #1. Just like teenage Pat in my story, Trump is not keeping his story straight.

In the YouTube era, anyone with a computer can watch the relevant clip from the White House press briefing and decide for themselves whether Trump sounded sarcastic. Feel free to post a comment saying what you think.

I think that it would be ethically wrong for the President to bait reporters by deliberately giving inaccurate information in a press briefing during a national emergency.

Story #3: Trump Was Musing Out Loud
Dr. Deborah Birx, a member of the Coronavirus Task Force who is a physician with a distinguished research record, spoke on television Sunday – three days after the disastrous press briefing – to explain that Trump was merely engaged in a “dialogue” with the other task force members: “I think I’ve made it clear that this was a musing, as you described.” She also complained that the press was spending too much time on the story.

Now, maybe Trump was “musing” and engaged in “dialogue” with the other task force members. However, a press briefing is not a college dorm session and is not the right time to discuss controversial or dangerous ideas that no one has fully vetted. Any “musing” or “dialogue” needed to happen before they invited the press. Maryland’s Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, said it best: “I think it is critical that the President of the United States -- when people are really scared and in the middle of this worldwide pandemic – that in these press conferences, that we really get the facts out there.”

In any case, even if Trump was just “musing,” Story #3 contradicts Stories #1 and #2. If he was merely musing, that means that he was quoted in context and the only mistake listeners made was to take him seriously. If he was being sarcastic, he was neither musing nor engaged in dialogue.

Speech research in the new media era

The Truth Is Always Consistent
Like our teenage friend Pat, Trump and his friends didn’t keep their story straight. The facts contradict all three of Trump’s stories. Worse, Trump’s stories contradict one another.

Of course, in the long run, liars never keep their story straight, do they?

My previous blog post argued that President Trump was unprepared for the briefing. That is why speakers need research. This post shows that, instead of admitting that Trump said something foolish and dangerous, Trump supporters and Trump himself have twisted themselves into knots trying to defend him. Unfortunately, they didn’t coordinate their stories.

Before I leave this regrettable press briefing behind, I will have one more point to make: the other task force members failed to correct Trump forcefully. The taxpayers, not the president, pay these people’s salaries, and their first loyalty needs to be to the people of the United States of America, not to him. Keep a lookout for my next post.


P.S.: New York television news reports that “New York City's Poison Control Center for exposure to certain household chemicals more than doubled after President Donald Trump suggested injecting disinfectant might be one way to combat COVID-19, the city said Saturday.” Maybe the President should be careful about speaking carelessly, musing or making sarcastic comments. Maybe he should do his homework before, and not after, he talks to reporters in public.

Image: White House Flickr

Speakers Need Research: Donald Trump Suggested Injecting Disinfectants to Cure the Coronavirus

Coronavirus Task Force, White House photo

Last Thursday, President Donald Trump asked during a Coronavirus Task Force press briefing in the White House whether scientists might look into injecting disinfectants or shining ultraviolet light into coronavirus patients to cure this terrible disease. This stunningly stupid idea created enormous controversy, although probably not as much as it should have, with interesting rhetorical effects:

1. President Trump was obviously unprepared for the briefing, showing once again that speakers need research.

2. Trump and his enablers in the conservative media have subsequently been going overboard trying to reconcile his ridiculous speculation with some kind of rational belief system. But they failed to coordinate their stories. 

3.The other task force members played dumb, showing, once again that people need to speak the truth to power.

This post looks at #1: speakers need research. I plan to write about #2 and #3 over the next few days.

What Trump Said
Let’s start with what Trump said. He made his comments immediately after a report from William Bryan, Acting Under Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, and not in answer to a reporter’s question. Bryan discussed various disinfectant solutions and made the mistake of saying, “you inject summer — the sunlight into that. You inject UV rays into that.”  That should have been harmless enough, except that, by saying “inject,” Bryan apparently gave Trump an idea. Oops.

I’ll quote Trump’s entire section to make sure that the context is clear (since, as we’ll see in a later post, the White House claims that he was taken out of context):

“THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Bill.

“Q Mr. Bryan —

“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.”

This was not an offhand comment; Trump suggested his bizarre medical solutions at length.

Later in the briefing, a reporter (finally) asked Bryan about Trump’s statement. Trump then backtracked:

“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.”

Speakers Need Research: The Continuing Case of Donald Trump?

Speakers Need Research, and President Trump Gathered a Little Bit of Research About the Coronavirus

Trump Got His Facts Wrong
Pretty much any mother in America could warn you that it’s a bad idea to take disinfectant internally. Responsible people quickly jumped Trump’s ridiculous ideas. CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, said that injecting disinfectants had “absolutely no merit.” The Clorox Company, which manufactures bleach, quickly issued a warning on its website carefully distinguishing between consuming disinfectants as opposed to using them to clean surfaces:

“Bleach and other disinfectants are not suitable for consumption or injection under any circumstances. People should always read the label for proper usage instructions. Disinfecting surfaces with bleach and other disinfecting products is one of the ways to help stop the spread of COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

The manufacturer of Lysol promptly issued a statement warning against taking their product internally:

“Due to recent speculation and social media activity, RB (the makers of Lysol and Dettol) has been asked whether internal administration of disinfectants may be appropriate for investigation or use as a treatment for coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). As a global leader in health and hygiene products, we must be clear that under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route). As with all products, our disinfectant and hygiene products should only be used as intended and in line with usage guidelines. Please read the label and safety information.”

The ultimate humiliation, at least to Republicans, might be an article from Al Jazeera, the Arab news agency, quoting a number of medical authorities to explain how dangerous Trump’s suggestion was.

Trump Needed Research
Now, let’s talk about why we need research. On the one hand, President Trump can pick up a phone and in a few minutes talk to people either in or out of government who know more about just about any subject than anyone else in the world. He could, on the other hand, look up information about disinfectants on his infamous cell phone. If he had done so, Trump might have encountered this passage in which, two days before his disastrous press conference, WebMD warned that the coronavirus pandemic had resulted in increasing cases of poisoning when people, especially children, consumed disinfectants:

“‘Exposures to cleaners and disinfectants reported to NPDS [the National Poison Data System] increased substantially in early March 2020,’ noted a team led by Dr. Arthur Chang, a researcher at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

An argument walking around in the dark corners of conservative talk says that only an idiot would have taken Trump seriously. This is so. Nevertheless, what does that stay about the uninformed president who asked an idiotic question founded on appalling ignorance? I hope to talk about that in an upcoming post.

The President of the United States has great prestige simply because of his office. Incredibly, despite his long record of getting things wrong (PolitiFact.com has rated hundreds of Trump statements, finding 21% to be Mostly False, 34% to be False, and 14% to be Pants on Fire) millions of Americans hang on President Trump’s every word. He has a responsibility to get things right.

The idea of a press briefing is to convey factual information to the public during an international crisis. The people who present such briefings have a basic obligation to get things right. For the president to spew dangerous nonsense, recognizing that millions of Americans are foolish enough to believe the things he says, overthrows the briefing’s purpose. Fortunately, there are no signs that Trump’s supporters are mainlining bleach. At least, not yet.

Although it is surprising that he didn’t understand that people should not inject disinfectants, Trump could easily have checked the facts before he opened his mouth. It’s okay if the president doesn’t know everything off the top of his head. It’s not okay if he fails to gather simple, easily available information before he briefs the American public about a national emergency.

Mike Lee Tries to Make Fun of the Green New Deal but Only Makes Fun of Himself (P.S.: Speakers Need Research)

I first became interested in communication and rhetoric because of my participation in my high school and college debate teams. In academic settings, the debaters with the best research win the debates. Unfortunately, however, we need to remind politicians to check their facts before they speak.

Stay tuned for future posts about this bizarre press briefing, when I will write about Trump's advisors and the desperate responses on conservative media.

Update: Increased calls about disinfectant consumption after Trump's briefing?