I think the temptation is to assume that the president is at least of average intelligence. Unfortunately this leads to this strange apologist behaviour when he says something fricking stupid.

I’m not sure why anyone would assume that at this point.

The fact that he got elected and can keep getting people to give him free air time.

Just remember that a little more than half of America is below average, and you will be comforted.

I don't think that Trump is stupid, I think he is completely handicapped by a massive case of narcissism rendering him incapable of seeing anyone else as his equal in any arena and taking any questioning as a personal insult. This is so complete in him that he thinks any idea that pops into his head is genius and expects everyone else to do the same as they are lessers. He also sees loyalty to him as the most important quality in any advisor. This leads to insane statements and total mismanagement of most things. This has also led to others recognizing this and understanding that they can personally profit from it by just going along with it. There are also true believers who follow him in much the same way cult leaders have always been able to convince people to do illogical things.

If we were ever lacking a clear counter-example of intelligence as a singular metric, we certainly aren't lacking any more.

I’ve been saying for a long time that Trump isn’t stupid, he just has nefarious goals.

But after seeing that rambling video of him hypothesizing about disinfectants to clean out the body, I’m convinced he’s actually an idiot.

Now he’s saying he was being sarcastic. Bullshit.

During the same briefing, Trump immediately attempted to clarify that he wasn't suggesting injecting cleaning disinfectants into the human body.

That didn't prevent the rabid anti-Trump media from making it a headline on every site, of course. Which then becomes:

"Trump says inject Lysol!"

I think even more predictable is the apologist tour the day afterwards trying to convince us the American President is not, in fact, a moron.

Here's the briefing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsQnfpfIa_o.

Can you please point out the timestamp when Trump attempted to clarify?

The closest I found was at ~31:00, some reporter asks for confirmation that there's no scenario in which disinfectants would be injected into the body. Bryan declines to comment, Trump responds with "maybe it works, maybe it doesn't work," which doesn't really provide any clarity.

And then at ~50:00 he asks Bryan to "talk to the medical doctors" to look at applying light and heat as a cure. Then he says "maybe it works, maybe it doesn't. I'm not a doctor, but I am a person with a very good you-know-what."

Some reporter suggests that the President of the United States should not spout random stuff and say "maybe it works, maybe it doesn't", Trump responds with "I'm the president, and you're fake news."

The people that are downvoting aren't interested in the actual facts or having an objective discussion about what he actually "meant". They just don't like Trump. Pretty sad for a forum with so many intelligent people on it.

Why should intelligent people prioritize interpreting foolish remarks in pursuit of some deeper meaning that would validate them?

It's not just a matter of not liking Trump. I don't like Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping, but they're not fools or clowns.

> Also, this fails to explain the _disinfectant_.

Not only are there hundreds of doctors in the US who inject disinfectant into people to treat viruses already, there are medical textbooks about it and even an academy for certifying medical practitioners:

https://aaot.us/?

(Technically they advocate taking blood from people, infusing it with disinfectant, and then injecting the infused blood back into people, but close enough.)

I don't know to what extent it's safe or effective, but hundreds of thousands of people have done it without dying at this point and many of them credit it for having healed various problems, so that's something.

The FDA seems pretty set where the alternative medicine practice of ozone therapy falls in terms of both safety and effectiveness as a medical therapy.

https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFR...

First sentence from that source:

> Ozone is a toxic gas with no known useful medical application in specific, adjunctive, or preventive therapy. In order for ozone to be effective as a germicide, it must be present in a concentration far greater than that which can be safely tolerated by man and animals.

You want to go through a list of things that various medical associations have been pretty set on and see how well they've held up over time?

That's not actually an argument, and is like saying "medicine was wrong before, therefore a bleach enema will cure cancer".