The president’s remarks on disinfectant last night were roundly ridiculed. Today he claimed he was being ‘sarcastic’. Time to review the briefing ...

On Thursday night, at a White House press briefing, Donald Trump appeared to give some pretty unorthodox suggestions about using disinfectant or sunlight to treat the coronavirus. But now he is backtracking – he says he was being sarcastic.

Following a report which showed disinfectant can kill a virus within minutes when applied to different surfaces, the president addressed the press conference with a startling revelation. He said he had asked his medical advisers to look into whether light could be “brought inside the body”, and whether with disinfectant “we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?”

Play Video 1:58 Trump floats dangerous coronavirus treatment ideas as Dr Birx looks on – video

On Friday, after widespread disbelief at his comments, and after medical experts rejected his ‘disinfectant injection’ theory, he attempted to walk back his remarks. When pressed by a reporter on the comments in the White House, Trump responded that he was asking the question “sarcastically to reporters like you, just to see what would happen”.

Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) "I was asking a sarcastic, & a very sarcastic question, to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside. But it does kill it." -- Trump tries to rewrite history, says he was speaking "sarcastically" when he mused about disinfectant injections being cure for Covid. pic.twitter.com/bWRU8EV6FZ

Now, this might cause one to question whether Trump knows the definition of sarcasm which, according to Merriam-Webster, is “a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain”.

The thought of the president baiting journalists to see “how they would react” in a time of unprecedented crisis is unsettling, but it is nothing new: Trump has mastered the art saying one thing and retracting or changing his statement when public opinion doesn’t follow.

Trump, after all, was the one who compared coronavirus to the seasonal flu, and then two weeks later, suggested that it was other people who were confused: “I’ve had many friends … People with great common sense, actually, have said ride it out, don’t do anything, and think of it as the flu. But it is not the flu. It is vicious.”

And then there were the six weeks where he downplayed the virus, only to turn around at the end of it and say he spotted the pandemic coming before anyone else did.

This week alone, Trump backtracked after a report showed an anti-malaria drug he had touted as a “game-changer” could lead to a higher death rate.

Maybe he was just being sarcastic. Or maybe, just maybe, he should finally listen to experts for once.﻿