Trump Taunts Reporter For Wearing Mask During White House News Conference

President Donald Trump told a reporter to take off his mask during a White House news conference on Tuesday. 

Trump said he had a hard time hearing Reuters White House correspondent Jeff Mason ask his question. 

Mason said he would just speak louder instead and Trump used one of his go-to lines to mock the reporter. 

“Oh, OK, because you want to be politically correct,” the president said  at the Rose Garden event. 

“No, sir, I just want to wear the mask,” Mason replied. After the event, the reporter tweeted a link to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations  for face coverings to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. 

Trump’s own task force has recommended face coverings while in public to help stop the spread of the virus.

But Trump himself has simultaneously endorsed the mask guidelines, mocked former Vice President Joe Biden for wearing one and largely avoided donning one himself, although a photo of him wearing a mask during a tour of a Ford facility surfaced last week.

Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, called Trump a “fool” for mocking the masks.

“He’s a fool, an absolute fool to talk that way,” Biden told CNN on Tuesday. “This macho stuff, for a guy ... I shouldn’t get going. It’s costing people’s lives.”

Later, he tweeted: