FACT CHECK: Joe Biden Claims Donald Trump Told People to Inject Bleach into Their Arms

CLAIM: Vice President Joe Biden claimed during the first presidential debate that President Donald Trump told people to inject bleach into their arms.

VERDICT: MOSTLY FALSE. President Donald Trump questioned an expert during a press conference about the value of injecting disinfectant or Ultraviolet rays into the body to kill the coronavirus. He did not tell Americans to inject bleach into their arms.

From the White House transcript:

THE PRESIDENT: Right. 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.

During the same press conference, Trump was asked a follow-up question from a reporter about whether he thought disinfectant should be “injected into a person.”

Trump said no: “It wouldn’t be through injection. We’re talking about through almost a cleaning, sterilization of an area.”

Later the president said he was being “sarcastic.”

“I was asking a sarcastic and a very sarcastic question to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside,” Trump said. “That was done in the form of a sarcastic question to the reporters.”