Trump Blames Biden, Who Isn't President, For Not Instituting Mask Mandate

President Donald Trump moved to blame his Democratic competitor, former Vice President Joe Biden, for not instituting a national mask mandate during the coronavirus pandemic.

The claim, made at an ABC News town hall Tuesday with undecided voters in Pennsylvania, is misleading for two reasons: Biden has, in fact, urged all state governors to mandate mask-wearing to slow the spread of COVID-19. The Democratic candidate is also not the president and has no authority to mandate anything. Trump does.

Julie Bart asked the president why he hadn’t instituted a national mask mandate during the height of the pandemic and why he had largely refused to wear facial coverings even as the nation’s top medical officials urged the public to do so.

“Well, I do wear them when I have to and when I’m in hospitals and other locations,” Trump said. “But I will say this. They said at the Democrat convention they’re going to do a national mandate. They never did it, because they’ve checked out and they didn’t do it. And a good question is, you ask why Joe Biden ― they said we’re going to do a national mandate on masks.”

Biden addressed the claim just moments after it aired:

The president went on to say “a lot of people think the masks are not good” and said health officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, were hesitant to push masks during the early days of the pandemic. That claim is...

Continue reading on HuffPost