Trump says he was "sarcastic" when talking about injecting disinfectants to treat COVID-19 patients

Trying to wriggle out of the backlash he received for his outlandish suggestions, US President Donald Trump has said that he was being "sarcastic" when he told his medical experts that they should consider using UV light, heat, or injecting disinfectants into the COVID-19 patients as a potential treatment.

Trump faced intense rebuke on Thursday for his far-fetched suggestion from health experts who urged people not to listen to the President's "dangerous" advice.

Doctors and the company that makes Lysol and Dettol warned that injecting or ingesting disinfectants was dangerous.

When Trump was asked about his comments during a bill signing on Friday, he said: "I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters 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," he said.

Trump suggested he was talking about disinfectants that can safely be rubbed on people's hands.

"But it does kill it, and it would kill it on the hands and that would make things much better. That was done in the form of a sarcastic question to the reporters," The Hill quoted Trump as saying.

When a journalist in the Oval Office pointed out that Trump had turned to experts next to the stage when he first raised the idea on Thursday, the president claimed he was asking those officials "whether or not sun and disinfectant on the hands can help us."
Trump also asked if there was a way to use disinfectants on the body "by injection inside or almost a cleaning."
"Deborah, have you ever heard of that? The heat and the light, relative to certain viruses, yes, but relative to this virus?"