During a White House press briefing President Trump expressed interest in injecting disinfectants as a treatment for COVID-19. In response  medical experts and the manufacturers of Lysol warned the public against attempting this. Trump’s defenders adopted two main strategies. The first was to interpret Trump’s statements in a favorable way; the second was to assert they were “fact checking” the claim that Trump told people to inject disinfectant. Trump eventually claimed that he was being sarcastic to see what the reporters would do. From the standpoint of critical thinking, there is lot going on with rhetorical devices and fallacies. I will discuss how critical thinking can sort through this sort of situation, because the next pandemic is likely to see a repeat performance.

When interpreting or reconstructing claims and arguments, philosophers are supposed to apply the principle of charity. Following this principle requires interpreting claims in the best possible light and reconstructing arguments to make them as strong as possible. There are three reasons to follow the principle. The first is that doing so is ethical. The second is that doing so avoids committing the straw person fallacy, which I will talk more about in a bit. The third is that if I am going to criticize a person’s claims or arguments, criticism of the best and strongest versions also takes care of the lesser versions.

The principle of charity must be tempered by the principle of plausibility: claims must be interpreted, and arguments reconstructed in a way that matches what is known about the source and the context. For example, reading quantum physics into the works of our good dead friend Plato would violate this principle.

Getting back to injecting disinfectants, it is important to accurately present Trump’s statements in context and to avoid making a straw person. The Straw Person fallacy is committed when one ignores a person’s actual claim or argument and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of it. This sort of “reasoning” has the following pattern:

Premise 1: Person A makes claim or argument X.

Premise 2: Person B presents Y (which is a distorted version of X).

Premise 3: Person B attacks Y.

Conclusion: Therefore, X is false/incorrect/flawed.

This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a claim or argument is not a criticism of the original. This fallacy often uses hyperbole, a rhetorical device in which one makes an exaggerated claim. A straw serson can be effective because people often do not know the real claim or argument being attacked. The fallacy is especially effective when the straw person matches the audience’s biases or stereotypes as they will feel that the distorted version is the real version.

While this fallacy is usually aimed at an audience, it can be self-inflicted: a person can unwittingly make a Straw Person out of a claim or argument. This can be done entirely in error (perhaps due to ignorance) or due to the influence of prejudices and biases.

The defense against a Straw Man, self-inflicted or not, is to get a person’s claim or argument right and to apply the principle of charity and the principle of plausibility.

Some of Trump’s defenders claimed Trump was the victim of a straw person attack; they set off on a journey of “fact checking” and asserted that Trump did not tell people to drink bleach. Somewhat ironically, they might have engaged in Straw Person attacks when attempting to defend Trump from alleged Straw Person attacks. Warning people to not drink bleach or inject disinfectants is not the same thing as claiming that Trump told people to do these things.

The truth is that Trump did not tell people to drink bleach. His exact words, from the official White House transcript, are: “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.”

Trump did not tell people to drink bleach or inject disinfectant. As such, the “Clorox Chewables” and similar memes were a form of visual Straw Person attack against Trump. But they can also be seen as the rhetorical device of mockery. To avoid committing the Straw Person fallacy, we need to use Trump’s actual statements and attacking him for advocating drinking bleach would be an error.

While Trump does not directly tell people inject disinfectants, he can be seen as engaging in a form of innuendo, a rhetorical technique in which something is suggested or implied without directly saying it. Anyone who understands the basics of how language and influence works would get that Trump’s remarks would cause some people to believe that this was something worth considering. There is evidence for this in the form of calls to New York City poison control centers and similar calls in Maryland and other states. A feature of innuendo is that it allows a person to deny they said what they implied or suggested, after all, they did not directly say it. Holding someone accountable requires having adequate evidence that they intended what their words implied or suggested. Doing this can be challenging since it requires insights into their character and motives. There is also a moral issue here about the responsibility of influential people to take care in what they say, something that goes beyond critical thinking and into ethics. But a president needs to be careful in what they say.

Trump used words indicating he thought medical doctors should test injecting disinfectants into peoples’ lungs as a possible treatment for COVID-19. Given Trump’s well-established record of dangerous ignorance, interpreting his words as meaning what they state does meet the conditions of the principle of charity and the principle of plausibility: these are his exact words, in context and with full consideration of the source.

Some of Trump’s defenders also tried to use what could be called the Steel Person fallacy. The Steel Person fallacy involves ignoring a person’s claim or argument and substituting a better one in its place.  This sort of “reasoning” has the following pattern:

Premise 1: Person A makes claim or argument X.

Premise 2: Person B presents Y (a better version of X).

Premise 3: Person B defends Y.

Conclusion: Therefore, X is true/correct/good.

This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because presenting and defending a better version of a claim or argument does not show the original is good. A Steel Person can be effective because people often do not know the real claim or argument being defended. The fallacy is especially effective when the Steel Person matches the audience’s positive biases or stereotypes, they will feel the improved version is the real version and accept it. The difference between applying the principle of charity and committing a Steel Person fallacy lies in the intention: the principle of charity is aimed at being fair, the Steel Person fallacy is aimed at making a person’s claim or argument appear much better and so is an attempt at deceit.

While this fallacy is generally aimed at an audience, it can also be self-inflicted: a person can unwittingly make a Steel Person out of a claim or argument. This can be done in error (perhaps due to ignorance) or due to the influence of positive biases. The defense against a Steel Man, self-inflicted or not, is to take care to get a person’s claim or argument right and to apply the principle of plausibility.

In the case of Trump, he was clearly expressing interest in injecting disinfectants into the human body. Some of his defenders created a Steel Man version of his claims, contending that what he really was doing was presenting new information about using light, heat and disinfectant killing the virus. To conclude that Trump was right because of this better version would be an error in logic. While light, heat and disinfectant will destroy the virus, Trump’s claim was about injecting disinfectant into the human body—which, while not telling people to drink bleach, is a dangerously wrong claim.

Trump himself undermined these defenders by saying “I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen.” If this is true, then his defenders’ claims that he was not talking about injecting disinfectant would be false. He cannot have been saying something dangerously crazy to troll the press and making a true and rational claim about cleaning surfaces.  Trump seems to have  used a rhetorical device popular with the right (although anyone can use it). This method could be called the “just kidding” technique and can be put in the meme terms “for the lulz.”

One version of the “just kidding” tactic occurs when a person says something that is racist, bigoted, sexist, or otherwise awful and does not get the positive response they expected. The person’s “defense” is that they did not really mean what they said, they were “just kidding.” As a rhetorical technique, it is an evasive maneuver designed to avoid accountability. The defense against this tactic is to assess whether the person was plausibly kidding. Did they intend to be funny without malicious intent and fail or are they trying to weasel out of accountability? This can be difficult to sort out, since you need to have some insight into the person’s motives, character and so on.

Another version of the “just kidding” tactic is similar to the “I meant to do that” tactic. When someone does something embarrassing or stupid, they will often try to reduce humiliation by claiming they intended to do it. In Trump’s injection case, he claimed he intended to say what he said and that he was being sarcastic. He meant to do it but was just kidding.

If Trump was just kidding, he thought it was a good idea to troll the media during a pandemic—which is a matter for ethics rather than critical thinking. If he was not kidding, then he was attempting to avoid accountability for his claim, which is the point of this tactic. The defense against this tactic is to assess whether the person was plausibly kidding, that is, did they really mean to do it and what they meant to do was just kidding? This requires having some insight into the person’s character and motives as well as considering the context. In the case of Trump, the video shows him addressing his remarks to the experts rather than the press and he seems completely serious. There is also the fact that a president engaged in a briefing on a pandemic should be serious rather than sarcastic. As such, he does not seem to be kidding. But Trump put himself in a dilemma of awfulness: he was either seriously suggesting a dangerous idea or trying to troll the press during a briefing on a pandemic that was killing thousands of Americans. Either way, that would be terrible. While this essay focuses on Trump and the COVID-19 pandemic; we should expect something similar, if not worse, should another pandemic arise during Trump’s reign.