President Donald Trump now claims that he was being sarcastic when he suggested that injecting disinfectants might have the potential to fight the coronavirus after facing backlash from the public. Doctors responded with horror and companies that produce disinfectants urged people not to ingest the poisonous substances.

“I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters just like you, just to see what would happen,” Trump said at an Oval Office signing for the Paycheck Protection Program. “I was asking a very sarcastic question to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside. But it does kill it and it would kill it on the hands and that would make things much better”.

However, what Trump said the day before – a long comment about how disinfectant and light could kill the virus – did not appear to be sarcastic.

Injecting or ingesting disinfectants is very dangerous, and doctors were quick to call the president’s suggestion “dangerous” and “irresponsible.”

Trump denied he was asking his experts to investigate the issue and suggested he was talking about disinfectants that can safely be rubbed on the hands, and that the sun can kill the virus. He said he was urging his officials to investigate how “sun can help us.”

This is what Trump had to say Thursday night:

“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.”

He also asked Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House pandemic response coordinator, to ask doctors whether light and heat could kill the virus.

“Not as a treatment,” she responded. “Certainly fever is a good thing, when you have a fever, it helps your body respond. But I have not seen heat or light.”

Trump lashed out at reporters who questioned a report from the Department of Homeland Security that suggested the coronavirus can be killed with heat and humidity.

“I’m the president and you’re fake news,” Trump told Washington Post reporter Philip Rucker.