In an interview on Fox Business Wednesday, President Trump said he is “all for” wearings masks to prevent the spread of coronavirus and would if he were in “a group of people.”
Trump has been regularly criticized for forgoing a mask in public and has been seen in close proximity to others without a mask on multiple occasions. At press conferences about the pandemic and its effects and a tour of a factory repurposed to produce ventilators for people infected by the virus, the president has been spotted with no facial covering. Ahead of the factory tour in May, the Michigan attorney general even wrote an open letter imploring him to wear a mask out of “legal responsibility.”
He ultimately appeared at the plant with no mask, claiming he wore one “in the back area” but removed it because he “didn’t want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it.”
He also did not wear a mask at his recent rally in Tulsa. Neither did many of the attendees.
During the interview on Wednesday, Trump told Fox Business’ Blake Burman, “I’m all for masks. I think masks are good.”
He didn’t express support for a mandate that all Americans should don a facial covering in public, saying there are “many places in the country where people stay very long distance.”
“If I were in a group of people and I was close, I would. I have. People have seen me wearing one, if I’m in a group of people where we’re not 10 feet away,” he said, adding that because he’s president, people are tested for coronavirus before he is exposed to them, but in a “tight” situation he’d wear one.
The president’s comments come as coronavirus cases surge in the United States and domestic deaths have topped over 125,000.
Watch the interview above (around the 2-minute mark).