Fox News’s Chris Wallace provided insight into the coronavirus precautions taken for the first presidential debate following the news that President Trump tested positive for the virus.
The Fox News Sunday moderator appeared for a Friday morning interview on Fox & Friends and explained that everyone was tested for COVID-19 by the Cleveland Clinic ahead of the Tuesday debate between the president and former Vice President Joe Biden.
“When we arrived in Cleveland, everybody, you had to take a test that was administered by the Cleveland Clinic, and it was one of those deep tests that goes all the way up your nostril, up, it seems, into front part of your brain. So everybody that was in that hall had tested negative. The interesting thing though, however, was that the Cleveland Clinic … said that everybody in the hall with the exception of the president, the vice president, and myself had to wear a mask,” he said.
[LIST: People in Trump’s orbit tested for COVID-19]
Wallace said the Biden campaign and his family took more precautions than Trump’s entourage.
“When Mrs. Biden came in, when members of her party came in, they were all wearing masks, and they kept them on throughout the debate. On the Trump side of the hall, Mrs. Trump came in wearing a mask but took it off once she sat down. I didn’t see when they came in, but all the other members of the first family that I saw there, including Ivanka, Tiffany, when they sat down, they weren’t wearing masks,” Wallace said.
Wallace said he was told by the press pool that the first family turned down an offer from the Cleveland Clinic for masks.
Wallace also said he plans on getting a COVID-19 test even though he doesn’t believe he came in close contact with the president.
“It was an extremely contentious debate. I certainly saw no sign of any flagging of energy in the president during the debate. As we all saw, he was loaded for bear,” he said.
The next debate is scheduled for Oct. 15, and the Commission for Presidential Debates is considering changes to allow for a better debate. One consideration, which Wallace opposes, is to provide the moderator with the ability to mute a candidate’s microphone.
“First of all, on practical level, if, and we are just playing a thought game here, a hypothetical, if one person decided that he wanted to continue to interrupt, first of all, it can probably be picked up on the other candidate’s microphone. And secondly, in the hall, it would be heard, it would continue to disrupt the debate, and secondly, they were saying, ‘Let’s put a mute button on the desk for the moderator.’ Can you imagine a moderator, I’m thinking of myself, but, you know, I’m not in it anymore, pushing a mute button and saying, ‘You know what, American people, 70, 80-whatever million people, I’m going in interpose myself between you and the president or you and the Democratic nominee?’ And I’m going to say, ‘No, you can’t hear what he’s saying,'” he said.
He added, “I wouldn’t do it.”
