Task force member says no downside to wearing mask after Trump calls it a 'double edged sword'

"It's really essential to wear masks and for this to work we have to have like 90% of people wearing a mask in public in the hotspot areas, if we don't have that we will not get control of the virus," Giroir, the assistant secretary for health at the US Department of Health and Human Services, said on ABC's "This Week."

"There is no downside to wearing a mask," Giroir added.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal in June, Trump expressed his hesitation with encouraging Americans to wear masks -- a measure encouraged and emphasized by public health officials in order to prevent further spread of Covid-19.

"Masks are a double-edged sword," the President said. "People touch them. And they grab them and I see it all the time. They come in, they take the mask. Now they're holding it now in their fingers. And they drop it on the desk and then they touch their eye and they touch their nose. No, I think a mask is a -- it's a double-edged sword."

After more than a week of "pleading" by aides urging the President to set an example for his supporters, Trump wore a mask in public for the first time Saturday while paying a visit to wounded service members at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

In recent days, Trump has also slammed the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's coronavirus guidelines as they relate to school reopening. He tweeted they were "very tough" and "expensive," while in another tweet threatened to cut off school funding if they resisted opening, though the federal government's ability to do so is limited.

Giroir split with Trump on Sunday, telling ABC's George Stephanopoulos that the guidelines are "really right on target," adding that the task force "feels they are pretty strong." He noted that the US still needs to get the virus under control, "when we get the virus more under control then we can really think about how we put children back in the classroom."

The task force member also took aim at Dr. Anthony Fauci amid reports that the nation's top infectious disease expert and the President are not speaking as the pandemic worsens.

"I respect Dr. Fauci a lot," Giroir said on NBC's Meet the Press. "But Dr Fauci is not 100% right, and he also doesn't necessarily, and he admits that, have the whole national interest in mind, he looks at it from a very narrow public health point of view."

The task force member told NBC that he believes "there is a complete open and honest discussion within the task force."