President Donald Trump said he would not require all Americans to wear masks to combat the spread of the coronavirus, because he wants “people to have some freedom.”
Trump’s response came after he was asked about issuing a national facial coverage mandate for all Americans during an interview to air on Fox News this weekend.
“I don’t believe in that, no,” the president told Chris Wallace for a segment on Fox News Sunday.
Trump’s response came after he was asked about issuing a national facial coverage mandate for all Americans during an interview to air on Fox News this weekend.
“I don’t believe in that, no,” the president told Chris Wallace (right) for a Fox News Sunday segment.
The president, responding to Wallace if he regretted not wearing a mask before wearing a face covering in public for the first time during a visit to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Saturday, also said, “No.”
The president also rejected a CDC recommendation that if all Americans wear masks, the virus could be contained in a matter of weeks.
The agency this week urged people to continue wearing masks to stop the spread of the disease, citing studies that showed they are a “critical tool” in the pandemic.
“I do not agree with the statement that if everyone wears a mask, everything could go away,” he told Wallace.
Trump also jabbed Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading epidemiologist and member of the White House coronavirus task force, with whom the President’s administration has split in the debate on facial coatings.
‘Hello Dr. Fauci said don’t wear a mask. Our surgeon general, a great guy, said don’t wear a mask, ” the president said in a reference to American surgeon general Jerome Adams.
The president’s references to Fauci and Adams were made in a reprimand of mixed messages about facial linings.
Trump also jabbed Dr. Anthony Fauci (pictured), the nation’s leading epidemiologist with whom the President’s administration has parted ways in the debate on facial coatings.
‘Everyone was saying not to wear a mask. Suddenly everyone has to wear a mask, and as you know, masks also cause problems. ”
Fauci admitted to NPR that the conflicting advice offered at the beginning of the pandemic was to blame for the debate now raging over whether people should wear masks.
“We have to admit that that mixed message at first, even though it was intended to make the masks available to healthcare workers, was detrimental to getting the message across,” Fauci said. ‘No doubt about that.’
So far, there have been more than 3.6 million cases of coronavirus in the U.S., to which more than 138,000 deaths have been attributed.
Fauci said he is “walking a tightrope” in his relationship with Trump, but he also bluntly told an interviewer that he cannot be removed from his job.
Since then, Fauci has said he is “walking the tightrope” in his relationship with Trump, but bluntly told an interviewer that he cannot be removed from his job.
Appearing on the cover of InStyle magazine in an interview conducted by CBS Evening News presenter Norah O’Donnell, Fauci said he was a “non-political person” but that the “real and perceived cumulative conflict” with the White House Trump was causing “very stressful” things.
The interview was published amid mounting White House attacks on Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, but also on the division among Trump’s courtiers over whether they should enter into a public battle with the doctor.
Last week, Trump said Fauci had “made many mistakes,” followed by unidentified White House officials who released a “dirty file” of those alleged mistakes, the file was rejected by the White House press secretary and the president insisted on Monday that relations were good.
Fauci appears in the photo during a meeting with Trump in the Oval Office earlier this year when the outbreak was beginning to spread across the United States.
But then, on Tuesday night, Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade adviser, published an opinion piece on USA Today accusing the expert of being “ wrong about everything, ” and then that too was rejected, and the president said Navarro should not have written it.
O’Donnell asked Fauci if he could be fired from the coronavirus special force, or his job as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
About the task force, he said: ‘Well, I see myself in that role as long as I feel like I’m being useful, and they value me, and the White House loves me. If any of the above changes change, then I would resign.
But when asked if the president could fire him as director of the NIA, he said bluntly, “No.”
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