WATCH: Bizarre Debate Explodes After Jack Kingston Calls Trump’s Comments About Injecting Disinfectant ‘Pretty Reasonable’

Al Jazeera host Mehdi Hasan and former Republican congressman Jack Kingston exploded into a bizarre debate during an interview this week over President Donald Trump’s comments about injecting disinfectant to combat the coronavirus.

“Back in April, he asked whether his scientists could look into injecting disinfectant into the human body to kill the coronavirus. One of the maddest things I’ve ever heard any politician say in my lifetime,” declared Hasan. “Even you, Jack, at that point must have said, ‘This guy shouldn’t be in charge of a bake sale, let alone a pandemic response.'”

“Actually, if you listen to that interview, he was talking about is there a way to internally digest a medicine that could cure,” responded Kingston, a former adviser to the Trump campaign. “Now frankly, you know, it’s thinking outside the box in a laboratory that comes up with great inventions, but you know, I can understand your discomfort with him saying that at a press conference.”

Me: “Jack, would you inject yourself with disinfectant because Donald Trump is like Henry Ford, you say?”

Trump supporter Jack Kingston: “Tell me what the definition of disinfectant is.”

My show @AJHeadtoHead is back this Friday, and it’s lively:pic.twitter.com/WsYM2bM0Io

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) July 22, 2020

Hasan shot back, “You can understand it? I mean, he made himself a laughing stock. His own aides distances themselves from him. He said, ‘Is there a way we can do something like that’ — disinfectant — ‘by injection inside?’ He wanted to inject disinfectant into human beings. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard any world leader say in my entire life.”

“That’s what everybody said when Henry Ford said, ‘ I want an automatic transmission.’ He had all the engineers at Ford Motor Company telling him it’s impossible and he kept setting it up,” Kingston argued, prompting Hasan to ask, “So Donald Trump is Henry Ford by suggesting bleach and disinfectant?”

As Hasan noted that some Americans consumed bleach to combat the coronavirus, Kingston snapped, “He never said drink bleach. You know that’s a total lie.”

“No, no, he said inject it into your body,” Hasan said.

“No, he said inject a medicine in your body,” Kingston claimed. “What he was asking is a pretty reasonable question, but you guys want to twist it because you can’t stand it.”

As Hasan then repeatedly pushed Kingston on whether he would inject disinfectant himself, Kingston responded, “I don’t know, I don’t know,” and added, “You know, when you drink Pepto Bismol, are you not cleaning out your system? Could that be considered a disinfectant?”

In April, while discussing ways to combat the coronavirus, Trump said, “Then I see the disinfectant, one minute. 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’d be interesting to check that so that you’ll have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds interesting to me. So we’ll see.”

Watch above, via Al Jazeera.