Joe Biden has released a new campaign video with Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi. Though the video claims to have been recorded live, it hilariously features an insane number of jump cuts, suggesting it actually took multiple takes throughout the recording process to get Biden's performance on the mark.
But, that aside, the video made it quite clear that Joe Biden is so desperate, that he's trying to rehash long-debunked accusations against Trump in the hopes of trying to turn his faltering campaign around.
"This is the guy who doesn't care about science and reason," Biden claims in the video. "Remember, during the pandemic, Donald Trump told us to inject ourselves with bleach. He said there's nothing to worry about if you do that."
Biden, flanked by Obama and Pelosi, again peddles the debunked lie that "Trump told us to inject ourselves with bleach." pic.twitter.com/tJKLIzAwmD
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 23, 2024
The big problem with this claim is that it never actually happened.
The false claim originated from the following exchange during the White House Coronavirus Task Force Briefing in April of 2020. During the briefing, potential COVID-19 treatments were discussed, including UV light treatments, and Trump said, “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.”
It's obvious here that he wasn't advocating for ingesting or injecting bleach; rather, he was exploring the feasibility of using disinfectants internally. He emphasized the necessity of medical supervision, cautioning against any attempt to replicate such measures independently.
So, where did the fake news that Trump told people to inject themselves with bleach come from? Later, during the same briefing, a reporter asked the acting undersecretary of science and technology for the Department of Homeland Security, Bill Bryan, “The president mentioned the idea of cleaners, like bleach and isopropyl alcohol you mentioned. There’s no scenario that could be injected into a person, is there?”
“It wouldn’t be through injection," Trump responded. "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.”
So, it was actually a reporter who linked injections and bleach — not Trump. In fact, Trump is the one who corrected the reporter.
The mainstream media didn't care, obviously, and the fake story made headlines in various media outlets. Not only that, but various media fact-checkers perpetuated this lie, which, of course, made it easier for Joe Biden to keep making the false claim throughout the campaign. Snopes didn't actually fact-check the accusation about Trump, but instead cherrypicked the quote and merely stated it was a "correct attribution." NBC News claimed in their own fact check that "Trump did indeed speculate that an injection of the sort could have a curative effect." CNN perhaps came the closest to admitting that Biden's accusations that Trump told people to inject bleach wasn't accurate when the network concluded that Biden "overstated some of the specifics."
The first fact check I was able to find admitting that Trump never suggested that people should inject themselves with bleach to fight COVID was a Newsweek fact check published in August 2021 that unambiguously rated the claim as false.
In other words, Biden is resurrecting old lies because he has nothing to run on.
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