Joe Biden said in an interview on Thursday he would use federal powers to require all Americans to wear face masks if he were elected president.
Speaking to CBS News Pittsburgh affiliate KDKA, Biden said he would “do everything possible” to ensure the public complied with his dictate in the name of slowing the spread of the coronavirus.
“The one thing we do know is that these masks make a gigantic difference,” he said in the socially-distanced TV appearance. “I would insist that everybody in public be wearing that mask. Anyone to reopen would have to make sure that they walked into a business that had masks.”
Asked if that meant he’d use his presidential authority to mandate mask-wearing, Biden said yes.
- “From an executive standpoint, yes I would … I would do everything possible to make it required that people had to wear masks in public.”
Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, also said it was likely he’d accept the Democratic nomination in a near-empty room.
- The Republican National Convention will be held in-person in Jacksonville, Florida.
Trump, who has generally refused to wear a mask, in May appeared to join fellow conservatives in mocking Biden’s practice of the anti-pandemic measure.
A signal of virtue?: Mask-wearing, which the CDC initially discouraged but has since recommended, has become something of a culture wars issue in the United States.
- In one recent poll, only half of self-identified Republicans said they almost always wore masks inside story, compared with three-quarters of Democrats.
