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Since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, President Donald Trump has projected an arrogant attitude toward wearing masks, refusing to wear a mask in public and poking fun at others who do.
Trump routinely appears without a mask while conducting a high-stakes campaign trip program of public demonstrations that he sarcastically calls “peaceful protests” as he pushes to reopen the US economy to win re-election.
“I’ve always wanted to downplay it,” Trump told The Washington Post columnist and author Bob Woodward after learning of the virus’s risks to the United States earlier this year.
“I still like to downplay it because I don’t want to create a panic,” the president told Woodward in March.
In keeping with his theme of downplaying the virus, Trump has repeatedly dismissed the value of wearing masks in his public statements and appearances despite recommendations from health officials that masks are essential to stopping the spread of the virus.
In his stump speeches at recent rallies at the airport, attended by large crowds of several thousand supporters, most of them without masks, Trump has criticized his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, for staying close to home in Delaware and show great caution.
“Every time you see him, he has a mask. He could be talking 200 feet from them and he’s showing up in the biggest mask I’ve ever seen, ”Trump said in Tuesday’s presidential debate with Biden in Cleveland, Ohio.
Asked by moderator Chris Wallace, Trump said he wears a mask “when necessary,” but was wrong to say that even Dr. Anthony S Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, had initially warned that “masks do not they are good “and” changed his mind “later.
Biden always wears a mask in public and has limited his few campaign events to a small number of people who meet local social distance requirements that Trump has circumvented.
On September 25, several thousand supporters attended a Trump rally in Newport News, Virginia, where the governor banned public gatherings of more than 250 people.
The president claims that there have been no consequences from his rallies. “We have not had any negative effects. And we have had between 35,000 and 45,000 people at these rallies, ”he said in Tuesday’s debate. Both statements are not true.
Refusing to wear a mask became a political statement for Trump supporters as early as June, when the president held a large public rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with thousands of attendees not wearing masks.
Former Republican Presidential contender Herman Cain died after contracting COVID-19 [File: 2011]
Herman Cain, a winning business executive and former Republican presidential candidate, died July 30 at the age of 74 from COVID-19 after attending the Tulsa event.
The rally “probably contributed” to hundreds of cases in Oklahoma, Dr. Bruce Dart, director of the Tulsa Department of Health, said in July.
Trump has repeatedly congratulated himself on his response to the COVID-19 pandemic that has infected nearly 7.3 million people and killed more than 207,000 in the United States.
But it has proven to be his greatest political vulnerability heading into the November elections. Polls show broad public support (80 to 90 percent) for wearing masks.
Biden has continually highlighted Trump’s response to the coronavirus during the campaign. Polls show that a majority of American voters disapprove of the president’s handling of the pandemic.
Trump has been “totally irrational” in his handling of the coronavirus pandemic that resulted in the loss of thousands of lives, Biden said at a televised town hall on Sept. 18.
“If the president had done his job from the beginning, all the people would still be alive,” Biden said at the event broadcast on CNN.
Trump failed to warn the American public about the serious risks of infection and has misled people about the value of wearing masks, Biden said.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris wore protective masks when he introduced her as his vice-presidential running mate in Wilmington, Delaware, on August 12, 2020. [File: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg]
“The idea that you are not going to tell people what they have told you, that this virus is incredibly contagious, seven times more contagious than the flu … He knew it and did nothing is almost criminal,” Biden said. .
In fact, Trump has sidelined public health experts and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from leading the White House’s political response, ostensibly to control the message that his administration is sending to the public.
President Trump holds up a face shield during a tour of the Ford Rawsonville component plant that makes ventilators, masks and other medical supplies in Ypsilanti, Michigan, on May 21, 2020. [File: Leah Millis/Reuters]
In May, he was briefly asked to wear a mask while visiting a Ford manufacturing plant in Michigan, but removed it before appearing in front of media cameras.
“I don’t want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it,” Trump said.
In June, the president did not wear a mask when he visited a medical swab manufacturing plant in Maine to promote increased production of testing supplies.
When asked at a White House briefing in August about the mixed message he was sending to the public in masks, Trump offered a mixed assurance.
“My administration has a different approach. We have urged Americans to wear masks, and I emphasized that this is patriotic. Maybe they’re great and maybe they’re just not that good, “he said.
At a press conference at the White House on September 7, the president demanded that a reporter remove his mask to ask a question: “If you don’t take it off, you’re very muffled.”
More recently, Trump has gradually tempered his comments on wearing masks. He has been seen wearing a mask with the presidential seal.
President Trump wears a protective face mask due to the coronavirus pandemic as he talks to workers while touring a Whirlpool Corporation washing machine factory in Clyde, Ohio, on August 6, 2020 [File: Joshua Roberts/Reuters]
As a security measure from COVID-19, Trump and Biden agreed not to shake hands at the beginning of Tuesday’s debate in Cleveland.
At the White House on Monday, Trump announced that the US government would begin distributing millions of rapid coronavirus tests to states this week and urged governors to use them to help reopen schools for students starting in kindergarten. up to grade 12.
“Tremendous progress is being made,” Trump said Monday. “And I say, and I will say it all the time, we are turning the corner. And more importantly, vaccines are coming, but we are right around the corner regardless. But the vaccines are coming and they are coming fast. “
Confirmed coronavirus cases in the US remain elevated at more than 40,000 a day and experts are warning of a likely spike in infections during the colder months ahead.
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