Fact Check: Joe Biden Repeats False ‘Bleach in Your Arm’ Claim

CLAIM: Joe Biden told an ABC News town hall that President Donald Trump told people to put “bleach in your arm.”

VERDICT: FALSE. Trump spoke about experimental UV light technologies. Biden keeps repeating the same false claim.

The former vice president told an ABC News town hall on Thursday evening that the president told people to put “bleach in your arm” and therefore should not be trusted to pronounce whether a potential coronavirus vaccine was safe or not.

As Breitbart News has noted in previous fact checks:

Trump never told anyone to inject bleach, much less in their arm. Nor did he tell anyone to injest bleach — another common Democratic Party talking point. On Thursday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) claimed — falsely — that Trump told people to “swallow Clorox.”

PELOSI: President Trump “is trying to have the Constitution of the United States ‘swallow Clorox’.”

What? pic.twitter.com/lehfEg5LaA

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) September 24, 2020

As Breitbart News has noted, and as the transcripts of White House press briefings confirm, Trump was discussing the future use of experimental ultraviolet light technology to disinfect surfaces and remove the coronavirus. The UV technology is already being used to disinfect offices and other spaces. Trump wondered openly whether it might be possible to “inject” UV light into the body — a technology that is currently in development, and which was reported in the media just days before.

When he was asked a follow-up question 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.”

Biden said that he would take a vaccine if it were approved by scientists. The scientists leading the administration’s Operation Warp Speed have said that they would not approve any vaccine if it were not safe for people to take.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His newest e-book is The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.