The White House is now claiming that Donald Trump’s repeatedly stated belief that “freshly squeezed” Fanta cures cancer was just a joke and that people should learn more about his sense of humor.

Earlier this week, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who Donald Trump appointed as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), said that Trump believes that “freshly squeezed” Fanta can kill cancer cells, and that’s why he drinks so much of it.

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“He’ll first start off with candy bars – that little candy jar, he’ll call it,” Oz explained on Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast, Triggered. “He’ll hit the red button. And then comes the diet soda pop, which 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 in the body.”

Oz said that he caught Trump drinking Fanta on Air Force One once and called him out.

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“So he starts to sheepishly grin. He goes, ‘You know, this stuff is good for me. It kills cancer cells.’ And then he tells me, ‘It’s fresh-squeezed. So how bad could it be for you?’” Oz said.

Trump has a history of making bizarre medical claims – like suggesting that people inject bleach to cure COVID-19 or that exercise kills people because it drains the “finite amount of energy” they’re born with – but “Fanta cures cancer” was absurd enough for White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt to try to walk it back.

“Look, as we all know in this room, I think you know the president has a very good sense of humor,” she said at a White House press briefing this week. “It’s one of his most under-reported characteristics, I would say. I have heard him tell this joke before.”