Trump says he’s ‘all for masks’ after GOP leaders voiced support for face coverings
President Donald Trump is now supporting the use of face masks during a major surge in coronavirus numbers across the U.S.
“I’m all for masks. I think masks are good,” the president said Wednesday afternoon on Fox Business.
He later said he liked the way he looked in the mask, but said he didn’t know if they should be made mandatory throughout the country.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged Americans to wear face masks in April to slow down the spread of coronavirus. It says everyone “should wear a cloth face cover when they have to go out in public.”
Trump has shown unwillingness to wear a mask in the past, including during a tour of a Ford Motor Company factory in May. He told reporters that he “didn’t want to give the press the pleasure of seeing” him with a face covering. He said he wore a face mask while “backstage” before he removed it before a tour.
Trump also toured mask-making facilities in Pennsylvania and Arizona in May without putting on a face mask in front of reporters.
The president did not wear masks during his coronavirus task force briefings. Many of his staff members alongside him often did wear masks, as well as the media members he was addressing.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last week, Trump suggested some people wear face masks as a way to signal their disapproval of him. In the same interview, he said masks are a “double-edged sword.”
“People touch them. And they grab them and I see it all the time. They come in, they take the mask. Now they’re holding it now in their fingers. And they drop it on the desk and then they touch their eye and they touch their nose. No, I think a mask is a — it’s a double-edged sword.”
There are more than 127,000 coronavirus deaths in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins University. Dozens of states reported surges during June.
Wearing face masks has become a partisan issue. Eighty-eight percent of Democrats said they wear a mask in stores, while 72 percent of Republicans said they do, according to a Pew Research survey last month.
In a separate poll by YouGov, 86% of Democrats say it should be mandatory to wear a face mask in public. Just 46% of Republicans said the same, according to the poll.
All big-name Republicans will have to be ready to wear a mask this summer when Trump is nominated in Jacksonville, Florida. That city just voted to require people to wear masks, according to The New York Times, even though the party moved the nomination from Charlotte to avoid the kind of social distancing and mask rules imposed on gatherings in North Carolina.
GOP leaders have recently shown increased vocal support for wearing face masks. U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said there should not be a stigma about wearing masks, according to CNN.
“We must have no stigma, none, about wearing masks when we leave our homes and come near other people. Wearing simple face coverings is not about protecting ourselves, it is about protecting everyone we encounter,” McConnell said Monday on the Senate floor.
Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander urged the president to wear a mask on Tuesday. At the start of a Senate hearing on the coronavirus, he called on the president to set an example for his supporters and wear a face mask.
“Unfortunately, this simple lifesaving practice has become part of a political debate, that says this: ‘If you’re for Trump, you don’t wear a mask. If you’re against Trump, you do,’” said Alexander.
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said Tuesday it “would be very helpful” if Trump voiced support for people wearing masks, according to ABC News.
Last week, former Vice President Dick Cheney was shown in a photo by his daughter wearing a face mask. “#RealManWearMasks,” U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney tweeted.
Those words — “real men wear masks” — were echoed Sunday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who said the same thing during an interview with ABC News.
