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As my RedState colleague Nick Arama wrote Saturday, the mainstream media went absolutely nuts over the weekend with their play by plays on how President Trump wore a mask Saturday during his trip to Walter Reed Medical Center in Maryland.

Many media outlets erroneously “reported” that it was the first time Trump had been seen in public wearing a mask since the pandemic began, which in reality was not true, as this May 21st tweet from NBC News proves:

President Trump wears a mask during his tour of the Ford Rawsonville Components Plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan, where ventilators, masks and other medical supplies are being manufactured. https://t.co/UCqBVUEuBZ

📷 Anonymous pic.twitter.com/eiIFVNPVIh

— NBC News (@NBCNews) May 22, 2020

In any event, CNN’s Jake Tapper was one of the many journalists who rushed to weigh in with his .02 on Trump wearing a mask, making this questionable observation on whether or not more lives could have been saved had Trump been wearing a mask in February and March:

Some day someone will do a study on how many lives might have been saved if this happened in February or March https://t.co/Y5iL9XFPC6

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 11, 2020

I say the comment was “questionable” for a couple of reasons. The first one, as others have pointed out, is that in February and March, the consensus seemed to be that wearing masks was not beneficial to anyone but medical personnel. That’s the message we all got at the time from health officials, the CDC, some politicians, and the media – including from hosts and guests on Tapper’s network.

The other is that Tapper himself knew at the time what the consensus was, judging by some of the health officials he interviewed at the time who discouraged it:

"Some day someone will do a study on how many lives might have been saved if this happened in February or March" – Jake Tapper, July 11: https://t.co/byZ4P7CdgC https://t.co/d0xKR3Pcka

— Christopher Bedford (@CBedfordDC) July 13, 2020

Flashback: People who were told by the U.S. Surgeon General, Fauci, the CDC, and every other medical expert “no need to wear masks” for weeks on end. Instead of shaming people, maybe consider why they’re distrustful of this demand inbox the first place. https://t.co/WX4fFQZhTW

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) July 13, 2020

Why didn't @jaketapper correct her? https://t.co/ZZ56wDNwSX

— I didn't vote for him, so think of a new retort (@jtLOL) July 12, 2020

Yeah good thing we weren’t told back in February not to wear masks by national cable news. https://t.co/9TO9Cku93M pic.twitter.com/iJWQMvz65v

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) July 12, 2020

The fact of the matter is that all of us, including Trump, the media, and everyone else were all going off of what we were being told at the time by Dr. Fauci, the CDC, and other medical experts about not wearing masks. For Tapper to pretend that Trump knew any different in February and March about wearing masks at a time when Tapper and other anchors on his own network were hearing and reporting on similar advice from health officials is the height of dishonesty and hypocrisy.

We’ll just add Tapper’s current hot take to the very long list of reasons why so few people trust the mainstream media anymore.

Flashback –>> CNN Anchor Jake Tapper’s Sanctimonious ‘Smear Campaign’ Rant Continues to Backfire Spectacularly