US President Donald Trump, tweeted an image of himself wearing a face mask and called the act “patriotic”, moving away from his well known reluctance to wear a facial covering in public during the Coronavirus pandemic.
According to reports, Trump’s decision to encourage mask-wearing was motivated by poor poll numbers, as majority of Americans don’t approve of the way he has handled the Coronavirus pandemic.
According to reports, Trump’s team tried to get Trump to wear a mask, saying they could have “MAGA”, “Trump-Pence 2020” or even the American flag printed on them but he refused and only wore a mask once in public.
His mind changed after a meeting with campaign aides at the White House last week, where they bluntly told him poll numbers showed Americans didn’t approve of his Coronavirus response.
“We are United in our effort to defeat the Invisible China Virus, and many people say that it is Patriotic to wear a face mask when you can’t socially distance,” Trump tweeted on Monday night , three months after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended wearing masks in public.
“There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favorite President!” he added.
The picture Trump tweeted, shows Trump wearing a mask with the presidential seal at his visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center earlier this month — his first and only time he was seen wearing one.
Before Trump’s change of mind, he was reluctant because he didn’t want to give in to media pressure.
On a trip to a Ford plant in May, Trump said he wore a mask on parts of the plant tour where reporters were not allowed, saying he “didn’t want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it.”
Remember in April during a press Trump suggested that it wouldn’t seem presidential to don a mask.
“(S)omehow sitting in the Oval Office behind that beautiful 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. Maybe I’ll change my mind,” Trump said at the time.
