> People also didn't listen to him about wind turbines causing cancer.
Asked why he was not in favor of wind mills, Trump answered once, that "they say" it can cause cancer. "They say" is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine_syndrome
> Or about vaccines causing autism
Trump sues outlets for speculating one of his sons has autism. "Many such cases" may hit close to home here. And a cute test: how much are you willing to bet (hard $) to back this a-causality? Didn't the general courts had to make a special vaccine court to deal with many such (autism) claims? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Vaccine_Injury_Compen...
> Or about global warming being a hoax by the Chinese to harm US manufacturing.
Global warming is used by the Chinese, in the sense that they completely ignore it, while fostering climate change activism in Western countries, so to reduce their energy footprint from within, and gain unfair advantage.
> All you can safely conclude is that Trump saw a YouTube video or a website or TV commentator that claimed that, and uncritically accepted it.
Trump was clearly not the best to give that conference. He was leaning towards his science advisors, to fill in the gaps. They told Trump about potential methods using UV-rays or disinfectants.
I too would tell the president if I knew about advances in research such as https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8346001/ (Inactivation of respiratory syncytial virus by detergents and disinfectants, 1993), but still hope that he does not run with it and shoots it from the hip. Maybe that was too much to hope for. But don't let people 20 years later remember the lie that "Trump said to inject people with bleach to cure COVID". There is plenty of other embarassing true stuff.