TOPLINE
Responding to a question regarding President Trump’s implied criticism of Vice President Joe Biden wearing a mask while out laying a wreath at a veterans park for Memorial Day, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said it’s “peculiar” he doesn’t wear one in his home.
White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany speaks to the press on May 26, 2020, in the Brady … [+] Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images
KEY FACTS
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends Americans wear face masks while out in public, not when at home, and additionally, some states like Delaware require it by law.
For the first time in two months, the presumptive Democratic candidate for president appeared in public outside his Delaware home wearing a face mask, with Trump retweeting a picture of Biden with the message, “This might help explain why Trump doesn’t like to wear a mask in public.”
“The president’s excited to see that Joe emerged from the basement,” McEnany said when asked about the tweet. “It is a bit peculiar though that in his basement right next to his wife he’s not wearing a mask but he’s wearing one outdoors when he’s socially distancing so I think that there was a discrepancy there.”
McEnany claimed that Trump isn’t “shaming anyone” and that Trump had privately worn a face mask while visiting a Michigan Ford facility last week, though he then toured the plant without one.
When Jeff Mason of Reuters informed her that the recommendations for a face mask is in reference to public spaces, McEnany said, “It’s recommended but not required so it’s the personal choice of the individual but it didn’t strike him as a very data-driven decision.”
A Michigan executive order mandates people wear a face mask when social distancing isn’t possible and another suspends nonessential trips to manufacturing facilities, both ignored by Trump through his visit, with the state’s attorney general likening the decision to that of a “petulant child.”
Tangent
For Memorial Day, Trump visited Baltimore’s Fort McHenry and gave a speech without a mask, in contrast to his opponents approach. Prior to the visit, the city’s mayor urged the president to cancel his trip as it went against his stay-at-home order. The event drew crowds to greet Trump. The president also spent the weekend at his golf property in Virginia, drawing criticisms as the number of deaths in the country nears 100,000.
Key background
The United States leads all countries in confirmed cases of the coronavirus with 1,671,728. It also leads the world in reported deaths with 98,584. McEnany and Trump have used a worst-case prediction that 2.2 million would die without any mitigation to praise the administration’s action, though earlier models used to illustrate the White House’s performance had estimated 60,000 deaths.
