“The Daily Show” wasn’t able to cover the weirdness last Thursday when Donald Trump suggested that people inject disinfectant into their lungs in order to cure coronavirus, and then claimed the next day that he was just being sarcastic. But on Monday, the show returned with a look at the whole weird deal that imagined what it would be like if it was just a bad standup comedy set.
For those catching up, during his coronavirus press conference on Thursday, Trump literally asked medical experts on his coronavirus task force if people could inject disinfectant or even UV light (no, really) into their bodies as a means of fighting COVID-19. (They can’t. Please don’t do that.)
The next day the White House tried to claim that Trump was taken out of context, only for Trump to ruin that excuse by claiming he was actually being sarcastic. The White House didn’t have a good explanation as to why a sitting president would joke about a plague that has already killed more than 50,000 people, and video of the exchange doesn’t support the interpretation that Trump was joking. Not even Fox News accepted that excuse.
Unsurprisingly, his comments were widely mocked — even disinfectant maker Lysol got involved, saying in a statement that “under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route).” After all, poison can kill. By Friday night, it was reported that Trump would be ending his daily coronavirus briefings. Whoops.
Back to “The Daily Show” and Noah. After recapping more of the weird twists and turns of the story, Noah got to Trump’s claim he was being sarcastic. “Now we’ve learned something new from Donald Trump. While the nation is chewing into these briefings for accurate information, Trump is just testing out his newest comedy material, and pulling everyone’s leg.”
At this point, video changed to a humorous deep fake in which video of Trump’s head from Thursday was put on what looks like a comedian in a comedy club, with video of audiences laughing thrown in for effect.
“One upside of this whole debacle is that Donald Trump has given Americans the perfect excuse, the perfect excuse for electing him,” Noah then said. “When all this is over, and all the other countries are asking ‘how the hell did you elect Donald Trump,’ Americans can be like ‘no dude, dude dude. We were just being sarcastic.’”
Watch the clip above.