The mainstream media was furious on Friday, after once again falling for a cleverly-laid trap by President Trump.

On Thursday, utilizing an extremely dry bit of wit, President Trump mentioned the possibility of testing “injected” disinfectants in the battle against coronavirus. Unbelievably, this sarcastic remark was somehow mistaken as literal by the mainstream media, and the President on Friday said the mentioned the bizarre idea “just to see what happens”.

Well, what happened was that the infotainment industry spent the next 18 hours obsessing over the joke and pretending that it was a serious suggestion.

Trump had again played them like a fiddle. Then, as if to add an emphatic period to the end of a sentence, Trump simply left these media miscreants hanging on Friday.

Trending: Coroner Saying George Floyd Died of Drug Overdose, Not Police Brutality President Donald Trump on Friday exited the White House coronavirus press briefing without taking any questions from reporters. The president concluded the briefing after he and his team delivered opening statements, saying, “Thank you very much,” before turning and exiting the room. Reporters shouted questions as he walked away. The president suffered a brutal 24 hours of news coverage after he asked whether disinfectant or ultraviolet light could be used in the body to fight the Wuhan coronavirus.

But there may have been a reason for the kerfuffle…

Prior to the briefing, reporters said that White House staff tried to change seating in the press briefing room, moving CNN to the back of the room and moving Washington Blade reporter Chris Johnson to the front. “White House staff just came into the briefing room and informed the print pooler that they want them to swap seats w CNN,” Yahoo News media reporter Hunter Walker wrote on Twitter. “That would move CNN to the back row from the front.” Reporters refused to move, even though the White House staffer threatened to have Secret Service enforce the seat change.

This leaves the infotainment industry wondering what’s better for their ratings: Lambasting the President over an obvious joke, or having nothing at all to work with.