Trump tweets it’s ‘patriotic’ to wear face mask despite his reluctance to do so
President Donald Trump tweeted a photo of himself wearing a face mask on Monday, writing that wearing one was “patriotic” and “there is nobody more Patriotic than me.”
“We are United in our effort to defeat the Invisible China Virus, and many people say that it is Patriotic to wear a face mask when you can’t socially distance,” Trump tweeted. “There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favorite President!”
Trump wore a face mask for the first time in public last week during a visit to a military hospital, the Associated Press reported.
“When you’re in a hospital, especially ... I think it’s a great thing to wear a mask,” Trump told reporters, according to the Associated Press.
Trump also shot down the idea of a national mask mandate this week.
“No, I want people to have a certain freedom, and I don’t believe in that, no,” Trump told Fox News’ Chris Wallace. “I want people to have a certain freedom, and I don’t believe in that. No, and I don’t agree with the statement that if everybody wear a mask everything disappears. Hey, Dr. Fauci said don’t wear a mask. Our Surgeon General — terrific guy — said don’t wear a mask.”
“Everybody who is saying don’t wear a mask — all of sudden everybody’s got to wear a mask, and as you know masks cause problems, too,” Trump continued. “With that being said, I’m a believer in masks. I think masks are good.”
More than half of states have a statewide mask mandate in place, The New York Times reported. Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis announced mask requirements on Thursday, according to the publication.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said leaders should be “be as forceful as possible” in getting people to wear masks, CNN reported.
“When you’re living your life and trying to open up the country, you are going to come into contact with people. And for that reason, we know that masks are really important, and we should be using them everywhere,” he said during a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event, according to CNN.
Fauci said he would “urge the leaders — the local political and other leaders — in states and cities and towns to be as forceful as possible in getting your citizenry to wear masks.”
Surgeon General Jerome Adams pleaded with Americans to wear masks in an interview with “Fox & Friends” but disagreed with the idea of a national mask mandate, ABC Columbia reported.
“I’m pleading with your viewers, I’m begging you, please understand that we are not trying to take away your freedoms when we say wear a face covering,” Adams said. “We are saying if we do these things, we can actually open and stay open.”
“I would rather help people understand why they should cooperate with wearing a mask and how they benefit from it versus simply saying we are going to force you to do it particularly sending in federal troops and using federal mechanism,” he continued.
Fauci told CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell in an InStyle interview that he didn’t regret telling Americans not to wear masks early on in the pandemic.
“No. I don’t regret anything I said then because in the context of the time in which I said it, it was correct,” Fauci said. “We were told in our task force meetings that we have a serious problem with the lack of PPEs and masks for the health providers who are putting themselves in harm’s way every day to take care of sick people.”
More people across the political spectrum are wearing masks more often outside the home, according to an Axios/Ipsos poll.
Republicans had the biggest increase in mask-wearing, going from 35 percent at the end of June to 45 percent to mid-July. Democrats wearing masks went from 71 percent to 78 percent, and independents wearing masks increased from 52 percent to 58 percent. The poll was conducted from July 10-13 with a sample size of 1,063 adults. The margin of error is between 3.1 and 3.4 percentage points.
Trump was previously photographed in public not wearing a mask.
In his first visit outside of Washington, D.C., since the pandemic started, Trump traveled to a Honeywell mask plant on May 5 in Arizona without wearing a mask, CNN reported.
“I had a mask on for a period of time,” Trump said at the time, according to CNN. “I had it on back — backstage. But they said you didn’t need it, so, I didn’t need it. And by the way, if you noticed, nobody else had it on that was in the group.”
Trump said he wouldn’t be wearing a mask himself, media outlets reported in April after the CDC issued its recommendations to wear masks “in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain.”
“I just don’t want to wear one myself,” Trump told reporters, according to Newsweek. “It’s a recommendation, they recommend it. I’m feeling good. Somehow, sitting in the Oval Office behind that beautiful resolute desk, the great resolute desk, I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I don’t know. Somehow, I don’t see it for myself. I just don’t.”
This story was originally published July 20, 2020 at 4:36 PM with the headline "Trump tweets it’s ‘patriotic’ to wear face mask despite his reluctance to do so."