WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump teased Fox News host Laura Ingraham for wearing a mask as she attended his campaign rally in Michigan on Friday.
“I do believe Laura Ingraham is here someplace,” the president said, scanning the crowd. “Where is Laura? Where is she?”
He continued, “I can’t recognize you. Is that a mask? No way, are you wearing a mask? I’ve never seen her in a mask. Look at you. Laura, she’s being very politically correct. Whoa!”
The Center for Disease Control and top health officials advise wearing face masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19, especially in situations where social distancing is difficult — like one of the president’s rallies.
A recent USA TODAY analysis shows that COVID-19 cases grew at a faster rate after at least five of Trump’s rallies since mid-August.
Trump has continued to give conflicting statements regarding his feelings for masks, switching from saying he has no problem with them, to questioning their effectiveness, to mocking others for wearing them, and claiming there is political motivation by wearing them.
The president mocked a reporter in May for being “politically correct” when they did not want to take their mask off at a press briefing.
He has also made fun of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for wearing a mask, just before he, First Lady Melania Trump, and dozens of campaign and White House staffers contracted COVID-19.
Ingraham was at the White House Rose Garden event, where Trump announced his nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, which can be traced to many of those cases. The Fox News Anchor did not wear a mask.
Ingraham and her show “The Ingraham Angle” have also routinely downplayed the seriousness of the virus.
In an interview Thursday, a day in which Johns Hopkins reported nearly 1,000 people died of COVID-19, Donald Trump Jr. wrongly stated that the rate of COVID-19 deaths has declined to “almost nothing.”
Trump Jr. said during an episode of “The Ingraham Angle” that he “went through the CDC data” and incorrectly claimed the number of COVID-19 deaths has significantly declined.
“Oh, because the number is almost nothing,” he told Ingraham, who did not correct him. “Because we’ve gotten control of this thing, we understand how it works. They have the therapeutics to be able to deal with this.”
The president insisted at the rally, “We’re still rounding the corner” when it comes to coronavirus.
As cases surge across the country, the United States hit the 9 million mark on Friday, according to Johns Hopkins University.
According to an NBC News tally, Friday saw a single-day record of 97,088 cases in the U.S.
Public health officials have been stressing the importance of mask-wearing now more than ever as cases skyrocket around the country. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, voiced support for a national mask mandate on Wednesday.
Contributing: William Cummings
Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/30/trump-fox-news-laura-ingraham-politically-correct-wearing-mask/6094042002/
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