Polls show most American voters disapprove of the president’s handling of the pandemic. Trump has been repeatedly self-congratulatory about his response to the COVID-19 pandemic that has infected nearly 7.3 million people and killed more than 207,000 in the US.īut it has proved to be his biggest political vulnerability going into November’s election. Polls show broad public support – 80 percent to 90 percent – for wearing masks.īiden has continually highlighted Trump’s response to the coronavirus during the campaign. The rally “more than likely contributed” to hundreds of cases in Oklahoma, Dr Bruce Dart, the director of the Tulsa Health Department, said in July. Herman Cain, a business executive and former long shot Republican presidential candidate, died on July 30 at the age of 74 of COVID-19 after attending the Tulsa event. Former Republican presidential contender Herman Cain died after contracting COVID-19 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 who did not wear masks. And we’ve had 35-45,000 people at these rallies,” he said in Tuesday’s debate. The president claims there has been no fallout from his rallies. On September 25, several thousand supporters attended a Trump rally in Newport News, Virginia where the governor has banned public gatherings of more than 250 people.
Questioned by moderator Chris Wallace, Trump said he wears a mask “when needed” but equivocated that even Dr Anthony S Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, had initially advised, “masks are not good” and “changed his mind” later.īiden always wears a mask in public and has limited his few campaign events to small numbers of people observing local social distance requirements that Trump has flouted. He could be speaking 200 feet away from them, and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen,” Trump said at Tuesday’s presidential debate with Biden in Cleveland, Ohio. “Every time you see him, he’s got a mask.
In his stump speeches at recent airport rallies, attended by large crowds of several thousand supporters – most of them without masks, Trump has criticised his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, for remaining close to home in Delaware and showing great caution. 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 health officials’ recommendations that masks are essential to stem the spread of the virus. “I still like playing it down because I don’t want to create a panic,” the president told Woodward in March.
“I wanted to always play it down,” Trump told The Washington Post columnist and author Bob Woodward that after learning of the risks to the US of the virus earlier this year. Trump routinely appears without a mask as he carries on a high-risk campaign travel schedule of public rallies he sarcastically calls “peaceful protests” as he pushes to reopen the US economy to win re-election. From the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, President Donald Trump has projected a cavalier attitude towards mask-wearing, refusing to wear a mask in public and mocking others who do.
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