Former President Donald Trump refused to wear a mask at the height of the COVID pandemic because it smudged his makeup, a former aide claims.
Trump made the decision to forgo masks while visiting a Honeywell factory that produced the highly sought products in May 2020, according to Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, in her new book, “Enough.”
She wrote that the former president chose to wear a white mask for the event, and asked staffers what they thought of it.
“I slowly shook my head,” Hutchinson writes. “The president pulled the mask off and asked why I thought he should not wear it.”
In response, Hutchinson said she pointed to the straps of her own mask — prompting the president to look down at his own, which is when he “saw they were covered in bronzer.”
“Why did no one else tell me that?” the president reportedly replied. “I’m not wearing this thing.”
Former President Donald Trump refused to wear a mask at the height of the COVID pandemic because it smudged his makeup, a former aide claims. AFP via Getty Images
The former president claimed, though, at the time he “had a mask on for a period of time” but decided not to wear one after getting the OK from the “head of Honeywell.”
“The press would criticize him for not wearing a mask, not knowing that the depths of his vanity had caused him to reject masks — and then millions of his fans followed suit,” Hutchinson writes.
In another instance, Hutchinson said, Trump invited lawmakers to the White House the night before Thanksgiving 2020 — but when they were tested for COVID, some came back positive.
Hutchinson said she decided to only allow those who tested negative to attend the event, to which Trump reportedly spat back, “I said everyone! Bring them all! Bring them all now!”
Trump made the decision to forgo masks while visiting a Honeywell factory that produced the highly sought products in May 2020, according to Cassidy Hutchinson. AFP via Getty Images
Doctors who heard the exchange “urged” her to “push back,” but she was told she “was not in the business of defying the president’s orders,” Hutchinson said.
Eventually, she wrote, Trump’s personal physician, Sean Conley, reluctantly agreed to allow all the guests — under the condition that those who tested positive wear a mask.
But “when everyone had filed into the Oval Office [Trump] instructed the masked guests to take off their masks,” Hutchinson writes.
“He assured them it was more important for him to see their beautiful faces, [and] said he was not worried about contracting the virus.”
During his presidency, Trump repeatedly refused to wear masks.
“I just don’t want to be doing — somehow sitting in the Oval Office, behind that beautiful Resolute Desk, the great Resolute Desk, I think, wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens,” he said, according to ABC News.
“The press would criticize him for not wearing a mask, not knowing that the depths of his vanity had caused him to reject masks — and then millions of his fans followed suit,” Hutchinson writes. AP
“I don’t know, it somehow, I don’t see it for myself.”
The former president also expressed skepticism about their effectiveness, and painted his 2020 rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, as weak for wearing one.
When he was asked at a September 2020 White House briefing why he did not wear a mask to set an example to his followers, Trump replied: “Well I’m tested, and I’m sometimes surprised when I see somebody sitting … like with Joe.
“Joe feels very safe in a mask,” he said, referring to Biden. “I don’t know, maybe he doesn’t want to expose his face. There’s no reason for him to have masks on.
“We get tested — I’m tested. I have people tested. When people come into the Oval Office, it’s like a big deal. No matter who they are — if they’re heads of countries, they all get tested.
“So I’m in sort of a different position,” he said. “And maybe if I wasn’t in that position, I’d be wearing it more.”
iforgotmymittens on September 22nd, 2023 at 19:59 UTC »
Nobody will ever be able to convince me he’s a “great businessman” when he could have launched MAGA masks and had his flock buy them for three easy payments of $9.99
steveschoenberg on September 22nd, 2023 at 19:43 UTC »
I’m willing to bet that Trump uses more makeup and hairspray than RuPaul.
ganymede_boy on September 22nd, 2023 at 19:29 UTC »
He did WAY worse than that about Covid.
Never forget how Trump mismanaged things in February 2020:
February 1: golf
February 2: golf
February 2: “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”
February 4: State of the Union Speech - "The best is yet to come!"
February 7: To Bob Woodward: “You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed." "It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus. This is deadly stuff."
February 7: Remarks in Charlotte, N.C.: "I think -Xi- handled it really well."
February 10: Fox Business interview: "I think China is very, you know, professionally run in the sense that they have everything under control"
February 10: Trump campaign rally.
February 15: Democratic Senators propose emergency funding bill to prepare for virus.
February 15: golf
February 19: Trump campaign rally.
February 19: “I think the numbers are going to get progressively better as we go along”
February 20: Trump campaign rally.
February 21: Trump campaign rally.
February 23: “We had 12, at one point. And now they’ve gotten very much better. Many of them are fully recovered”
February 24: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”
February 25: “I think that's a problem that’s going to go away… They have studied it. They know very much. In fact, we’re very close to a vaccine.”
February 26: “CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus.” “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.” “We’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.”
February 26: “The 15 {cases in the US} within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” “We're going very substantially down, not up.”
February 27: “One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.”
February 28: Trump on way to campaign rally. “We're ordering a lot of supplies. We're ordering a lot of, uh, elements that frankly we wouldn't be ordering unless it was something like this. But we're ordering a lot of different elements of medical.”
February 28: ”This is their new hoax," he said, referring to the coronavirus.
February 29: “STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus” –U.S. Surgeon General - original tweet deleted
February 29: Coronavirus Task Force press conference: "China seems to be making tremendous progress. Their numbers are way down"