President Donald Trump has been peddling hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus cure and his Wednesday press conference is no different. However, his latest claim is now that zinc is "good," too.
"And zinc, they say zinc. You should add zinc," Trump said. It's unclear who "they" is. He also claimed that people should ask their doctors for the zinc, which is available as a vitamin at the local pharmacy.
MSNBC's Chuck Todd was forced to break into the Trump press conference to clarify and fact-check Trump.
"There are two things the president has said in the last 15 minutes that we think is worth trying to explain our fact check here," Todd said, breaking in on Trump's press conference. "One was on a medical recommendation that the president was making about the use of zinc."
Todd asked Dr. Vin Gupta what Trump was talking about.
"I don't know," he confessed. "I was actually really happy to hear the president talk about clinical trials and messaging on that, but then he followed it up with a discussion of the representative from Michigan and what might have been a really successful use of hydroxychloroquine. We just don't know if that was the actual cause of her improvement. It may have been. We just don't know, which is why he was doing great talking about clinical trials upfront. The comments about zinc were mystifying. There is no evidence I've seen in the literature suggesting zinc in addition to hydroxychloroquine, would be helpful. So I think this is another one of those unknowns that should temper his enthusiasm."
Watch the moment below:
