It’s not exactly a secret that Donald Trump has weird ideas about health and science. In fact, it was earlier this year when the president told The Wall Street Journal he routinely ignores the advice of physicians on daily aspirin use, in part because he’s “superstitious” and in part because he wants “nice, thin blood pouring through my heart.”
This is the same Republican who also famously recommended research into treating Covid-19 patients with disinfectant injections and shining “very powerful” lights inside their bodies.
So it doesn’t come a great surprise to learn the president also apparently believes diet soda possesses implausible health benefits. The New Republic noted:
During the latest episode of Donald Trump Jr.’s ‘Triggered’ podcast, Dr. Mehmet Oz, the daytime television host the president picked to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, revealed some of the president’s unorthodox beliefs about health.
‘Your dad argues that diet soda is good for him because it kills grass, if poured on grass, so therefore it must kill cancer cells inside the body,’ Oz said.
The former television personality went on to share an anecdote about seeing the president drinking an orange-flavored soft drink. Oz said the president “starts to, like, sheepishly grin. He goes, ‘You know this stuff’s good for me. It kills cancer cells.’ And then he tells me, ‘It’s fresh squeezed, so how bad can it be for you?’”
Trump’s son, the host of the podcast, laughed at all of this, which was understandable. It was funny to hear fresh evidence of the president’s odd beliefs.
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Steve Benen
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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