UN-BARE-ABLE
Trump shuns mask in odd tribute to workers
Face it: President Trump is no fan of masks.
The personal protective gear-averse president did not keep his face covered while touring a mask distribution center in Pennsylvania on Thursday, continuing a trend he set during a recent visit to a similar facility in Arizona.
Trump’s maskless visage was particularly noticeable since his own advisers, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and White House coronavirus task force member John Polowczyk, kept their faces covered for the visit to the Owens & Minor distribution center in Allentown. Workers at the facility also kept their faces masked in keeping with federal guidelines.
Owens & Minor has distributed millions of N95 masks across the nation amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Trump administration.
In a stream of consciousness speech, the president praised the plant’s workers for making sure “the vital supplies to our health care warriors.”
“They are warriors, aren’t they? When you see them going into the hospitals and they’re putting the stuff that you deliver and they’re wrapping themselves and the doors are opening and they’re going through the doors and they’re not even ready to go through those doors and they probably shouldn’t,” Trump said to silence from workers who were socially distancing 6 feet apart on the factory floor.
Continuing, Trump compared health care workers to soldiers in a war and suggested it’s “beautiful” to see doctors and nurses “running into death.”
“They’re running into death just like soldiers run into bullets, in a true sense,” he said, as the U.S. coronavirus death toll neared 86,000. “I see that with the doctors and the nurses and so many of the people that go into those hospitals — it’s incredible to see, it’s a beautiful thing to see.”
On May 5, Trump showed up with his face uncovered at the Honeywell aerospace plant in Phoenix, which has been refitted to produce masks amid the pandemic.
Both Arizona and Pennsylvania are considered crucial swing states in November’s presidential election, and though the Thursday trip was a taxpayer-funded White House event, Trump couldn’t keep himself from dipping into some campaign-style attacks on the free press.
“The press … they’re there right there,” he said, gesturing toward journalists in the room. “They are a disaster, but that’s okay. The people understand and that’s all that really matters.”
In his remarks, Trump also lamented social distancing, as he continues to push for a rapid reopening of the U.S. economy despite advice from his own health experts to play it slow and safe.
“All that social distancing, look at you people all spread out,” Trump told plant workers. “That’s really impressive, but we like it the old way a little bit better, don’t we? And we’ll be back to that soon, I really believe it.”