White House designed ‘Make America Healthy Again’ cloth facemasks

Prior to President Trump becoming an anti-mask-er, administration officials floated mass producing ‘Make America Healthy Again’ facemasks, to send to the American people amid the coronavirus pandemic.   

The New York Times produced a deep-dive on ‘what went wrong’ between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the White House in order to hamper the response to the pandemic, which has so far killed 108,000 Americans. 

Sometimes both the White House and the CDC would start on the same page. 

President Trump shows off a mask with a presidential seal. Originally administration officials had talked to the CDC about mask design ideas, but the plan was nixed before the CDC announced Americans should wear masks on April 3 

While The Times doesn’t point a direct finger at Trump, his dislike of wearing masks likely tanked the project that would have roped in Fruit of the Loom and Hanes to create masks for the American people, which would then be distributed by the U.S. Postal Service 

A White House stenographer wears a mask with the presidential seal as the president talks to reporters outside before heading to Michigan to tour a Ford plant 

A number of figures in President Trump’s orbit did wear masks including Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Michael Caputo (left) CDC  Director Robert Redfield (right)

Though mask-wearing was not across the board. Here  Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar (left) goes mask-less, while Dr. Anthony Fauci (right) wears a mask at a Rose Garden in mid-May  

The Times reported that in March administration officials approached the CDC and asked for feedback on cloth masks they hoped to distribute. 

Among the designs pitched was the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ masks – similar to Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan, ‘Make America Great Again.’  

CDC leaders agreed to the request, but the plan fell apart. 

Axios reported in early April – and by that time the plan was ditched – that administration officials had wanted to create a partnership between clothing companies Hanes and Fruit of the Loom, and get the masks delivered to millions of Americans with the help of the U.S. Postal Service. 

The idea was inspired by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar informing the coronavirus taskforce that Hanes had decided to start making cotton masks. 

Robert Kadlec, the assistant secretary for Preparedness and Response at the Department of Health and Human Services, backed it, as did Matthew Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser, Axios said. 

Kadlec wanted to publicly announce the proposal in conjunction with the CDC’s April 3 recommendation that Americans wear facemasks to slow the spread of COVID-19. 

While no finger is pointed directly at Trump in The Times’ reporting for the mask giveaway falling apart, the president’s April 3 reaction to the CDC’s advice set the tone. 

‘Well, I just don’t want to wear one myself,’ he said in the briefing room.   

‘I just don’t want to be doing – I don’t know, somehow sitting in the Oval Office behidn the beautiful Resolute Desk – the great Resolute Desk – I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I don’t know. Somehow, I don’t see it for myself,’ Trump said. ‘I just – I just don’t. Maybe I’ll change my mind, but this will pass and hopefully it’ll pass very quickly.’ 

The Associated Press later reported that Trump told aides it would ‘send the wrong message’ if he put on a mask. He also said he’d look ridiculous and that he feared those images would be used in political attack ads. 

But in Michigan while touring a Ford plant in late May, the president put on a mask. 

He refused to show reporters that mask while it was on his face, but by that night photographs of the president wearing it leaked. 

‘I wore one in this back area,’ he told reporters. ‘But I didn’t want to give the press the pleasure of seeing it.’