Former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele said Wednesday he’s “exhausted” and “exasperated” by what he described as “dumbass” Trump supporters who refuse to wear masks.
“I’ve talked to enough of them over the last few days,” Steele said on MSNBC. “I’m exhausted, I’m exasperated. You know, at this point it’s like, save who you can save because there’s only so much you can do.”
“The fact that we have to literally beg people to wear a mask to save their own dumb ass from getting sick — I’m sorry, to me, it is beyond the imagination,” added Steele, who was RNC chairman from 2009-2011.
His remarks came a few days after President Trump held an indoor rally in Henderson, Nev., before a largely maskless crowd of supporters with little social distancing. The Trump campaign came under criticism both before and after the event for ignoring warnings from public health officials.
The Sunday rally was promoted as a chance “to gather peacefully under the 1st Amendment” to hear the president speak.
“If you can join tens of thousands of people protesting in the streets, gamble in a casino, or burn down small businesses in riots, you can gather peacefully under the 1st Amendment to hear from the President of the United States,” the campaign said in a statement leading up to the event.
More recently, Trump on Wednesday publicly rebuked Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield for testimony before Congress in which he said masks may be more effective than a vaccine in protecting individuals from COVID-19.
Trump said at a White House press conference that Redfield made a “mistake.”