CLEVELAND, OHIO – SEPTEMBER 29: U.S. President Donald Trump participates in the first presidential … [+] debate against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, moderated by Fox News anchor Chris Wallace (L) at the Health Education Campus of Case Western Reserve University on September 29, 2020 in Cleveland, Ohio. This is the first of three planned debates between the two candidates in the lead up to the election on November 3. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
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Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace, who moderated the debate Tuesday between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, told Fox News viewers Friday to “follow the science.” In an appearance on FNC’s Outnumbered, Wallace said “forget the politics. This is a public safety health issue. The president of the United States is in the most secure bubble in the world in the sense that everybody who comes in contact with him has to take a test and he still got it. So wear the damn mask and follow the science. That’s the key takeaway.”
Wallace noted that at the debate hall in Cleveland members of the Trump family declined an offer of masks, and that after the debate ended Melania Trump walked onto the stage without a mask, while Jill Biden wore a mask—as members of the Biden family had throughout the event.
CLEVELAND, OHIO – SEPTEMBER 29: First lady Melania Trump, President Donald Trump, Democratic … [+] presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden, stand on stage following the conclusion of the first presidential debate at the Health Education Campus of Case Western Reserve University on September 29, 2020 in Cleveland, Ohio. This is the first of three planned debates between the two candidates in the lead up to the election on November 3. (Photo by Morry Gash-Pool/Getty Images)
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While Wallace believes he was likely not close enough to the president to have risked exposure, he said “I’m going to have to get a test” to be sure—but not until Monday. “The three people on the stage for an extended period were the president and the vice president and me all without masks. And my doctor is telling me that I shouldn’t get a test today because it takes five days for the virus to load up enough. And that I could have a test, but it might well be a false negative,” Wallace said.
“The significance of that to me is that if the president had a test yesterday and it tested positive, then I think he had the coronavirus during the debate. Because, you know, this talk about while he was with Hope Hicks on the plane in Minnesota on Wednesday, I don’t think you’d have a positive test. And again, I’m not a doctor. I’m simply telling it in terms of what I was told by my doctor. It wouldn’t load up enough to have a definitive positive test for about four or five days, which is why I’m not getting tested until next Monday.”
US President Donald Trump holds a face mask as he speaks during the first presidential debate at the … [+] Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio on September 29, 2020. (Photo by JIM WATSON / AFP) (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
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During Tuesday’s debate, Wallace did ask Trump about the way mask-wearing has become a political statement, with one side arguing masks are a vital public health tool, and others—including the president—often mocking people for wearing them. Mr. Trump did pull a mask from his jacket pocket, but has regularly appeared in public without one.