SATIRE (unless it isn't)
THE HOAX FILES · 40
He Never Said "Drink Bleach"
He never said "drink bleach." He did say enough to keep the bit going.
Media-wide
A rambling briefing about disinfectant became the most repeated misquote of the pandemic.
As printed on the graphic:
Trump Told People to Drink Bleach Hoax
What they sold
April 23, 2020, White House coronavirus briefing. From that point on, among Democrats and across much of the media, the shorthand was that Trump told people to drink (or inject) bleach. Biden said it on the campaign trail. Jen Psaki repeated a version of it from the White House podium in December 2021 (Breitbart).
What the record shows
The transcript. Trump wondered aloud whether disinfectant could be used "by injection inside or almost a cleaning" against the virus in the lungs. When a reporter asked about injecting bleach or isopropyl alcohol, he said it wouldn't be through injection and talked about cleaning and sterilizing areas (American Presidency Project transcript). The next day he said he'd been sarcastic, and FactCheck.org called that spin.
PolitiFact, July 2020, checking Biden: "No, Trump didn't tell Americans infected with the coronavirus to drink bleach." Fair hedge: musing about injecting disinfectant from a presidential podium was reckless, and it's fair to criticize. But "he told people to drink bleach" is a quote that doesn't exist.
The damage
FNN analysis: the real clip was bad enough to criticize. The made-up version got repeated by a future president and a press secretary. Gallup's 2020 trust: 40%. 2021: 36%.
Closer
The actual quote was bad. They made up a worse one. Put the transcript on screen.