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President Donald Trump shared a tweet that seemed to have ridiculed the way Joe Biden, his presumed Democratic Party opponent in this year’s presidential race, looked while wearing a mask during a Memorial Day Ceremony.
Biden wore a black mask while laying a wreath at a military memorial in Delaware, his first public appearance since states across the country issued stay-at-home orders to combat the spread of coronavirus.
Conservative media personality Brit Hume took note of the way Biden appeared during the event, and shared an image on Twitter mocking the candidate for president.
“This might help explain why Trump doesn’t like to wear a mask in public,” Hume wrote. Trump then shared the tweet with his millions of followers on the social media website.
Although Trump and Hume appear to be dismissive of Biden’s decision to wear a mask, current recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) urge individuals to wear a facial covering whenever they venture out into public settings.
“Everyone should wear a cloth face cover when they have to go out in public, for example to the grocery store or to pick up other necessities,” the CDC states on its website. Exceptions are made for those who are under 2 years old and for those who have a difficult time breathing in general.
Wearing a cloth covering isn’t only to protect the individual donning it, according to the CDC. “The cloth face cover is meant to protect other people in case you are infected,” the website says.
Even while wearing a mask, the CDC cautions people against believing wearing one means they can ignore other social distancing rules. The agency still recommends, for instance, that people remain six feet apart from others when they venture about in public.
In spite of these measures promoted by the CDC, Trump has famously not worn a facial covering at a number of public appearances he’s made over the past several weeks. The only known instance of him wearing a mask was believed to be snapped by a photographer with The Detroit Free Press during a tour of a Ford Motor plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan, last week, when a photographer snagged an image of him wearing one during a tour of the facility.
Even so, during public statements he made after the tour, Trump appeared to address reporters without wearing a mask.
The president has flouted the idea of him needing to wear facial coverings since the CDC started making recommendations for Americans to do so. In early April, asked why he didn’t want to wear a mask, Trump suggested he was more concerned with how he’d appear to world leaders if he was wearing a mask in the Oval Office.
“I just don’t want to wear one myself,” Trump said at the time. “It’s a recommendation. I am feeling good. I just don’t want to be doing — I don’t know, somehow sitting in the Oval Office behind that 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.”
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