Chris Wallace fires back at Lara Trump for lies about wearing masks at debate: ‘I’m not making this up’
11 October 2020
Fox News host Chris Wallace questioned Trump campaign surrogate Lara Trump on Sunday about the first family's decision not to wear masks at the first presidential debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
Wallace began his interview with the president's daughter-in-law by asking whether a White House Rose Garden gathering for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett was a "super-spreader event."
"People were packed in, almost no masks and Dr. Fauci has said that event was a super spreader," Wallace explained. "Why did it take the president getting COVID for the White House to take the CDC safety guidelines more seriously, although even yesterday they were still violating some?"
Trump argued that "most if not all" of the attendees at the Rose Garden event had been previously tested.
"And you never hear, Chris, on the other side of the coin the fact that we have had in this country since really the height of the COVID days these demonstrations across America," Trump opined. "But you never hear any concern after these things about those being super-spreader events. I have yet to hear one doctor say anything about them."
"It doesn't seem like coronavirus would have a political agenda but oftentimes is feels like it does," she added. "The White House has always followed guidelines."
"I take your point about the protests," Wallace pressed. "But that doesn't make what happened at the White House — which Tony Fauci says was a super spreader — at least eight people at that event later came down with the virus, including the president and the first lady."
The Fox News host went on to ask the campaign surrogate why the Trump family declined to wear masks at the first presidential debate.
"You all took them off," Wallace recalled. "Did you think, Lara, that the rules that applied to everybody else in that hall didn't apply to you?"
"Well, of course we didn't think that!" Trump insisted. "I want to be very clear. Never one time did anyone from Cleveland Clinic come up and ask any member of our family to put a mask on. So that is totally false."
"Everybody in that hall had tested negative," Wallace said. "And the fact is, the rules were everybody except for the president, the vice president and I were supposed to wear masks and it was the pool report — I'm not just making this up — the pool report says a member of the Cleveland Clinic — in fact, there's video that exists — coming up to someone in the presidential party and saying would you like masks, and they were waved away."
Watch the video below from Fox News.