President Donald Trump, 73, didn’t understand or accept responsibility for the spike in people using disinfectant improperly when he answered one reporter about the subject at a press briefing from the Rose Garden on Apr. 27. Just days after he suggested that ingesting disinfectant could be a possible cure for Covid-19 patients when discussing the topic with a Department of Homeland Security official Bill Bryan, he told the reporter that he “can’t imagine why” there’s a spike. “I can’t imagine why,” he said after the reporter at today’s briefing brought up the rise in misuse of the virus-killing household items. When the reporter went on to ask if he took any responsibility for it, Trump said he didn’t. “No I don’t, no I can’t imagine, I can’t imagine that,” he said before quickly going onto another question from another reporter.
Trump’s lack of responsibility and understanding of the misuse of disinfectants comes after he called his original remarks “sarcastic” and insisted he was just asking officials to look into the effect disinfectant had on the hands and not through ingestion or injection. The reporter’s question for today’s briefing was brought on after Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, who is a Republican, publicly claimed his state took hundreds of calls from residents who asked if ingesting or injecting disinfectants was a good way to beat the virus. “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,” Governor Hogan told Margaret Brennan on CBS’ Face the Nation. Illinois has also said they have experienced an increase in calls to poison control after Trump’s statement.
Although Trump didn’t outright say to inject or ingest disinfectants inside the body to kill the pandemic, it’s easy to see why his remarks could cause some confusion with people either trying to recover from the virus or trying to prevent themselves from getting it. “I see that disinfectant knocks it out in a minute. One minute,” he said in the briefing, when discussing the disinfectant and the possibility of sunlight being a cure with Bryan. “And is there a way we can do something like that. By injection inside…or almost a cleaning. Cause you see it gets in the lungs and does a tremendous number on the lungs. It would be interesting to check that so you’ll have to use medical doctors. But it sounds interesting to me. We’ll see, but the whole concept of the light the way it goes in there in one minute. It’s pretty powerful.”
President Trump says he "can't imagine why" there are more reports of people misusing disinfectants after his comments last week, and he doesn't take responsibility for it https://t.co/9T8aUPjUrs pic.twitter.com/y46qT89Mv6
— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 27, 2020
As of Apr. 27, 3,068,453 people have been infected with Covid-19 worldwide, including 1,010,356 Americans.