Trump envoy uses 2019 photo to allege Biden hypocrisy on masks
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on November 2, 2020 at 22:35
- 2 min read
- By AFP USA
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“Washington, DC phony! @JoeBiden doesn’t wear a mask on a plane - but wears one OUTSIDE!?” Grenell, Trump’s special envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations, who previously served as acting director of national intelligence, wrote in a November 1, 2020 tweet.
Face masks -- which many state and local authorities are either requiring or recommending be worn to help curb the spread of the coronavirus -- have become a divisive political issue as well as a matter of public health.
Trump long refused to use a mask, and while he now says he supports them, he frequently appears in public without one, and has mocked Biden and other people for wearing one.
AFP Fact Check conducted a reverse image search of the photo of Biden without a mask that was tweeted by Grenell, and found a reference on Twitter to the image appearing in Vogue magazine.
A Google search then located the image, which is dated November 2019 and appears with this Vogue article.
As of November 2, the novel coronavirus has killed more than 231,000 people in the United States.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention emphasizes the danger of asymptomatic transmission of the coronavirus and recommends cloth face coverings as a means to reduce this risk.
“You could spread Covid-19 to others even if you do not feel sick,” it says, adding: “The cloth face cover is meant to protect other people in case you are infected.”
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