LA mayor on Trump: ‘Real men wear face masks’

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (D) criticized President Trump on Tuesday for not wearing a face mask at several public appearances outside the White House. 

During an interview with MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell, the news anchor asked Garcetti about his opinion regarding the president’s decision. 

“Mayor Garcetti, what should the president do in terms of the way he models behavior for the rest of the country?” Mitchell asked. 

“Simply put, I say real men wear face masks,” Garcetti responded.  

“Simply put, he’s our commander in chief. I say real men wear face masks.”@MayorOfLA @ericgarcetti to @mitchellreports on @MSNBC. pic.twitter.com/X8HLuTyHT8

— MSNBC Public Relations (@MSNBCPR) May 21, 2020

Later in the day, Trump visited a Ford ventilator assembly plant in Michigan without wearing a face mask, despite company and state policies.

Vice President Pence was criticized earlier this month for not wearing a mask inside the Mayo Clinic campus in Minnesota.

“When they’re going to be with other people in public it is our gateway to increasing freedom, more economic activity and the greater opening up,” Garcetti said, referring to the act of putting a mask on. “And I think modeling that is something so important for all of our leaders. And any men who don’t want to wear face masks, we’ve got to get over ourselves and just do it.”

The mayor’s comments come as public officials have increased messaging urging residents to wear face masks now that most states are looking to reopen their economies. In New York, where the state launched an ad campaign to promote face mask use, public health officials found essential workers had lower rates of infection because they wore face masks. 

Garcetti said that although Los Angeles has been less impacted than other major cities, local officials are investing in hiring hundreds of contact tracers to aide in reopening efforts. 

“Look, simply put, we’ve got millions of people out of work and hundreds of thousands of jobs we need filled,” he said. “And the quicker we can get them doing contact tracing, helping individuals and businesses with the benefits from the federal government, maybe even doing things like cleaning up cities and investing in infrastructure, the quicker we can get this economy back going. So for a few billion dollars we could unleash $1 trillion of economic activity sooner.”