US President Donald Trump on Monday took to his social media account to post an image of himself wearing a face mask and indirectly called the act “patriotic”.
Taking to Twitter, Trump wrote along with a photo of himself wearing a mask, “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”.
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. There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favorite President! pic.twitter.com/iQOd1whktN
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 20, 2020
“There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favourite President!”, Trump further tweeted.
The image shows Trump wearing a mask with a presidential seal during his visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre earlier this month — his first and only time so far donning a facial covering in public after months of refusing to be seen doing so in public amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump then steadfastly defended his administration’s handling of the pandemic even though the US is the hardest-hit country in the world.
To wear a mask or not has become a sort of political fulcrum for a deeply divided America.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend people wear masks in public when they cannot engage in social distancing.
Trump’s agreement to don a mask in public at Walter Reed came after heavy “pleading” by aides, according to a presidential adviser, who urged the President to set an example for his supporters by wearing a mask on the visit.
In May, the president even made fun of Biden when the latter started wearing a mask in public, sharing a tweet that featured an unflattering photograph of the former vice president in a black face covering.
The US leader had reportedly told aides that wearing a mask would make him look weak and he could not stomach the idea of letting the media photograph him in one.
When he left the White House to head to Walter Reed, Trump made it sound like he would wear a mask only because he would be in a hospital — not that he had come around and embraced the idea of donning one regularly.