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Trump asks crowd to wear masks despite not donning one himself, calls Biden 'puppet of extremists' at rally

Trump also attacked the mail-in voting system and asked his supporters to vote twice in the November poll, something which has sparked a controversy

President Donald Trump has been found addressing rallies and gatherings a number of times where his supporters cared little about wearing masks as a precaution against the spread of the coronavirus. On Thursday, September 3, too, he was found to be doing the same even as he stressed on the importance of wearing the face-gear during a rally in Pennsylvania, a key state in the November polls that Trump won by less than 45,000 votes in 2016. However, the 74-year-old did not care to don a mask himself.

For an hour-and-half, Trump spoke to an animated crowd, including hundreds of people who did not observe social distancing at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport, Latrobe, where he also slammed his presidential opponent, Joe Biden, as a “puppet” in the hands of domestic terrorists.

The Republican told the crowd that he was in favor of wearing masks and asked them to be careful during the upcoming Labor Day (Monday, September 7) weekend by maintaining distance and regularly washing their hands “and things like that”. But moments later, the maverick president mocked Biden for wearing a mask often.

“Did you ever see a man who likes a mask as much as him?” Trump asked, saying the former veep occasionally hangs a mask from one ear because it “gives him a feeling of security”. “If I were a psychiatrist, right, you know I’d say, 'This guy's got some big issues'. Hanging down. Hanging down,” the commander-in-chief who will take on Biden in less than two months in a high-profile battle, said.

In July, Trump said many people are of the opinion that wearing a mask when social distancing is not possible makes one patriotic with a capital ‘P’ and also tried to showcase himself on Twitter as a patriotic president both through words and a picture. After months of denial, Trump was seen sporting a mask on July 11 during his visit to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, to see injured service members. "I think it's a great thing to wear a mask. I've never been against masks but I do believe they have a time and a place," he told the media before his visit to the facility.

Pennsylvania currently has restrictions over indoor gatherings to 25 people and outdoor meetings to 250 people to prevent the spread of the deadly virus which has affected more than six million in the US and killed over 186,000. Trump, however, has bothered little about wearing the masks except for a few times despite experts advising the same. Trump’s administration has faced heavy criticism over its handling of the pandemic but the president has always denied it. On Thursday, too, he defended his response to the pandemic but did not spend much time addressing either the disease or the economic hardship it has caused, thanks to countrywide lockdowns in a bid to restrict its spread.

Election 'was over' before coronavirus came: Trump

In a tone of overconfidence, Trump even said at the rally that the election “was over” before the coronavirus came. He said he would have been able to cancel the campaigning this year had the virus not taken a toll the way it has. Post pandemic, however, Trump has faced the battle to return to the White House more challenging as Biden has taken a lead over him in many key states. At the airport rally where the Air Force One plane was seen parked, Trump, however, told his supporters that Biden was “dropping like a rock in water”. He accused the former vice-president of planning to appease the domestic terrorists while he himself wanted to arrest and prosecute them. He also slammed the 77-year-old as a “puppet of the socialist, Marxist and the cop-hating extremists” and received wide applause from the crowd.

Trump also attacked the mail-in voting system and asked his supporters to vote twice in the November poll, something which has sparked a controversy. He told the voters of North Carolina the same during an interview with the news station WECT on Wednesday, September 2. “These mail-in ballots are a disgrace and they know it. Sign your mail-in ballot. Sign it and send it in and then you have to follow it. And if on Election Day or early voting, that is not tabulated and counted, you go vote,” he said.