President Trump said he made mask-wearing optional at a Friday afternoon Rose Garden event. Trump appeared mask-less, along with Health...
President Trump said he made mask-wearing optional at a Friday afternoon Rose Garden event.
Trump appeared mask-less, along with Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, while both Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx sported masks.
'We've all been tested, I've been tested, we've all been tested and we're quite a distance away and we're outdoors, so I told them, I gave them the option and they could wear it or not,' Trump explained when asked about the inconsistent appearance of officials. 'So you can blame it on me,' Trump said.
'I gave them the option, they could wear it or not,' he repeated.
The president remarked of the coronavirus that it kills a 'very, very small percentage' of people.
'I say it all the time, it's a tiny percentage,' he said. 'The vast majority - many people don't even know they have it.'
COVID-19 has left more than 86,000 Americans dead.
President Trump again appeared without a mask during a White House Rose Garden event on vaccines Friday. He told reporters he gave officials the option to wear a mask since they all had been tested, were standing several feet away from one another and were outside
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar (left) went mask-less at the Rose Garden event, while Dr. Anthony Fauci (right) wore a mask
The Surgeon General Jerome Adams also decided to wear a mask to Friday's event in the White House Rose Garden
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin wore a black face mask at Friday's White House event in the Rose Garden
Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Michael Caputo (left) talks with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield (right) through their masks in the Rose Garden Friday
Trump had gathered a group in the Rose Garden Friday to give the American public an update on vaccines.
He, again, predicted that one would be available by the end of the year.
The president's remarks and then his back-and-forth with masked reporters was accompanied by the soundtrack of honking truckers, who have been protesting rate decreases by parking their rigs on Constitution Avenue for more than a week.
The truckers are predominantly Trump supporters, the president made sure to point out. Signs on those trucks would indicate that Trump's assessment of their politics was true.
With Friday's event Trump continued his streak of refusing to wear a mask.
He told reporters he did put on a mask 'backstage' when visiting the Honeywell plant in Arizona that was producing N95 masks to help deal with a shortage amid the coronavirus pandemic, but he didn't wear it with cameras around.
The Associated Press reported last week reported that Trump told aides it would 'send the wrong message' if he put on a mask. He also said he'd look ridiculous and that he feared those images would be used in political attack ads.
When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first put out its advisory that Americans should wear facial coverings, Trump expressed then it wasn't for him.
'Well, I just don't want to wear one myself,' he said at an April 3 White House press briefing.
'I just don't want to be doing - I don't know, somehow sitting in the Oval Office behidn the 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,' Trump said. 'I just - I just don't. Maybe I'll change my mind, but this will pass and hopefully it'll pass very quickly.'
No comments