The New York Times deleted a tweet linking to an article about President Donald Trump’s Thursday suggestion that ingesting disinfectant could be a possible coronavirus cure.
“We’ve deleted an earlier tweet and updated a sentence in our article that implied that only ‘some experts’ view the ingestion of household disinfectants as dangerous. To be clear, there is no debate on the danger,” said a tweet from the account Friday.
That tweet followed a new one linking to the original article. The updated copy read, “President Trump has promoted unproven and potentially dangerous treatments for the coronavirus. On Thursday, he speculated about treatments involving the use of household disinfectants that would be dangerous if put inside the body.”
The now-deleted tweet read, “At a White House briefing, President Trump theorized — dangerously, in the view of some experts — about the powers of sunlight, ultraviolet light and household disinfectants to kill the coronavirus.”
While the paper of record scrambled to clarify its original tweet Friday, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany blamed the media for the negative attention Trump’s comments about injecting disinfectant have received.
“President Trump has repeatedly said that Americans should consult with medical doctors regarding coronavirus treatment, a point that he emphasized again during yesterday’s briefing,” McEnany said in a statement. “Leave it to the media to irresponsibly take President Trump out of context and run with negative headlines.”
Trump’s suggestion has been widely shot down, by everyone from White House coronavirus task force coordinator Deborah Birx to Lysol, which released a statement against ingesting its products.