MSNBC’S Chris Hayes: ‘Nothing Stupider’ than Re-Opening Advocates ‘Not Wearing a Mask’

MSNBC host Chris Hayes on Friday evening said nothing is more counterproductive than re-opening advocates to not wear masks as some sort of “badge of honor” while ripping President Donald Trump for perniciously “spreading propaganda” to make it more difficult to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

Hayes bemoaned that “not wearing a mask has kind of become a sort of weird, culture war virtue signaling by Trump people” and told those want to re-open business: “The mask is your friend.”

The MSNBC host said “it’s bad enough” Trump has failed to solve the coronavirus problem and “declared bankruptcy” on his ability to do so. But he added that there is “nothing more pernicious” and “nothing more stupid than actively spreading propaganda to make the problem worse.”

“But for Donald Trump’s own stated aims, for the stated aims of those protesters, and all the right-wingers out there who think they’re the ones, the vanguard of opening up America and getting American capitalism cracking again, there is nothing stupider, nothing more counterproductive you can do than turn not wearing a mask into some right-wing badge of honor,” Hayes said. “If the stated goal here is to open up the American economy and get people back to work and achieve some level of normalcy, something we all desperately want, there is really good evidence that everyone wearing a mask can really help us in that project.”

The MSNBC host noted that polls have found that 80 percent of Americans want people to wear masks when they leave their homes and pointed out that in places like Hong Kong, people continue to live their lives and even ride subways and go to crowded restaurants because masks work.

Hayes also ripped Rush Limbaugh for mocking Dr. Anthony Fauci for wearing a mask during an appearance with Trump just days after Fauci went into limited quarantined and testified remotely before Congress because he may have been exposed to the coronavirus.

Fauci presumably wore the mask to protect the president from potentially getting infected.

Hayes said his masks fog up his glasses and make him feel claustrophobic but he wears them because it is the least he can do to help contain the spread of the coronavirus.

“We are facing a pandemic that has ravaged everyone’s life,” Hayes added. “The easiest, lowest-hanging fruit to make things at least somewhat better, the smallest, most trivial thing is: Let’s all wear masks.”

A recent in-depth study found that coronavirus infection would plummet the more people wore masks.