Joe Biden ditches mask at Lincoln Memorial — hours after mandating them
President Biden was spotted going maskless at the Lincoln Memorial on Wednesday night — hours after signing an executive order mandating the use of masks on federal land to battle the coronavirus pandemic.
The newly inaugurated president went bare-faced not only during a televised address to the American people, but also outside the context of the speech, as he stood at the foot of the memorial, C-SPAN footage shows.
The clip showed Biden standing before the towering statue of the nation’s 16th president, another person a short distance to his left at an angle that obscures whether they too were unmasked.
The lapse in coronavirus safety precautions by the 78-year-old president came just hours after he signed an executive order mandating masks on federal property.
That decree is in addition to 10 other executive orders Biden will sign across Thursday and Friday in the fight to stamp out the virus that has claimed the lives of over 400,000 Americans.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.