WASHINGTON — President Trump's senior campaign adviser Jason Miller on Sunday accused former Vice President Joe Biden of using face masks as a "prop," just days after the President was hospitalized with COVID-19.
"I'd say that with regard to Joe Biden, I think too often he's used the mask as a prop," Miller said during a "This Week" interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "We have to get out there and live our lives and take this on, develop the vaccine, develop more therapeutics, and defeat it."
Miller's statement was made after he was pressed about the recent Trump rallies where supporters mostly went maskless and weren't standing six feet apart. He said that his team takes the virus "very seriously." He added that they gave out masks and checked the temperature of everyone coming to rallies or events.
"A mask is very important, but even if he's -- he could be 20, 30 feet away from the nearest person and still have the mask on. That's not going to change anything that's out there," Miller added. "But, also, we've seen with -- with Joe Biden, I mean, we can't all just stay in our basement for the rest of our lives."
Miller's view echoed Trump's during the first presidential debate last week when he mocked Biden.
“I don’t wear a mask like him,” Trump said of Biden. “Every time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from him and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.”
President Trump has repeatedly downplayed the threat of the virus in public, despite telling journalist Bob Woodward privately in February that COVID-19 was more deadly than the flu."
Biden’s deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield responded to Miller's accusations in a later interview on "This Week."
"I think that tells you a lot of what you need to know about how the Trump campaign has treated this from the outset," she said.
"(Biden) believed strongly that the role of the president is to lead and to lead by example. And I think Americans are looking for that kind of reassurance we're obviously in an incredibly chaotic disruptive time in this country. Americans are looking for a leader, looking for somebody who will stand up and say, 'let's take care of each other. Let's move forward in our lives."
President Trump was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center Friday night after contracting the coronavirus. First Lady Melania Trump was also diagnosed, but she remains at the White House.
On Sunday during a press conference, the White House physician said Trump’s blood oxygen level dropped suddenly twice in recent days. However, he “has continued to improve” since then. The doctor even suggested that he could be discharged from the hospital as early as Monday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people wear masks in public settings and when around people who don’t live in their household, especially when other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain.
Masks are used as a simple barrier to help prevent respiratory droplets from traveling into the air and onto other people when the person wearing the mask coughs, sneezes, talks, or raises their voice. The CDC said this slows the spread of the coronavirus.
