This is Pence in Florida not wearing a mask. Today he was at the Mayo Clinic, not wearing a mask.
Vice President Mike Pence toured the Mayo Clinic with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
Minnesota Reformer is not there, but some of the Minnesota press corps is, dutifully describing the action for us.
The Star Tribune‘s Briana Bierschbach reports on Twitter that Pence elbow bumped a Mayo employee who had a mild case and is now recovering and donating plasma. And that Pence says they’re “very excited” about Mayo’s antibody testing capacity, which allows us to find out who has had COVID-19 and may have some immunity from the disease.
Bierschbach also reports Pence was complimentary of Walz and the Minnesotans he leads.
“I had to be here at Mayo today, because when the president and I heard about the moonshot partnership, the president and I knew this was the right state at the right time,” Pence said during the roundtable portion of the visit to Mayo Clinic
— Briana Bierschbach (@bbierschbach) April 28, 2020
Perhaps most interesting, as Theo Keith of Fox-9 reported, Pence was the only person in the facility not wearing a mask. That’s because Mayo requires masks. Walz was wearing one. As was GOP Rep. Jim Hagedorn of the 1st Congressional District.
Mayo sent out a passive-aggressive tweet about the incident, or maybe just aggressive-aggressive.
Mayo Clinic had informed @VP of the masking policy prior to his arrival today.
— Mayo Clinic (@MayoClinic) April 28, 2020
Mayo deleted the tweet. The New York Times reports that Pence has been getting criticism around the country as he has traveled for his duties, unmasked. The White House says he is frequently tested.
Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our web site. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics.
Related News
