Fox News anchor Chris Wallace says members of President Donald Trump’s family didn’t wear masks while they were watching the first presidential debate inside a hall in Cleveland, Ohio, Tuesday night. Wallace moderated the first presidential debate of the campaign.
Wallace said, “People in the hall did notice that while they were all wearing masks, including my wife and four children, that the first family did not wear masks during the debate. … It is worth noting that different people treated the safety rules inside the hall differently.”
Wallace said on “Fox & Friends” on Friday that Jill Biden, the wife of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, and members of her group all wore masks throughout the debate.
“On the Trump side of the hall, Mrs. Trump came in wearing a mask, but took it off once she sat down,” Wallace said.
At the presidential debate, the rules mandated everyone in the room wear masks and there was a limited audience of only 75 to 80 people, all of whom were tested for the coronavirus before the debate at the Case Western University and Cleveland Clinic.
Trump’s handling of the pandemic has been a major flashpoint in his race against Democrat Joe Biden, who spent much of the summer off the campaign trail and at his home in Delaware citing concern about the virus. Biden has since resumed a more active campaign schedule, but with small, socially distanced crowds. He also regularly wears a mask in public, something Trump mocked him for at Tuesday night’s debate.
“I don’t wear masks like him,” Trump said of Biden. “Every time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from me, and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.”