People should continue to practice good hygiene and wash your hands, avoid touching your face,

and wear a mask, wherever it's indicated, or wherever you're not able to practice social distancing.

That is Vice President Mike Pence last week after months of denying the necessity of wearing a mask to protect

himself and others against COVID-19. After all, the pandemic is rising fast all over the country.

We are now having 40 plus thousand new cases a day. I would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around.

And so I am very concerned.

But despite the growing number of cases and despite the science, resistance to wearing a mask is still going strong.

I'm not going to wear a face diaper.

I have a breathing problem.

My doctor would not let me wear masks. You guys are violating federal laws. You get that? And I'm not doing it because I woke up in a free country. This is a false flag for pandemic. You are in violation my constitutional rights. You're terrorists. There's no pandemic. I don't care. It's still not legal. Just because everybody's doing it doesn't make it legal. Texas government said it's not legal and I don't have to. I'm sorry that you don't like it, but I mean, I don't like wearing a mask. Well, I'm going to ask you to come up to you off. Every single one of you have a smirk behind that little mask, but every single one of you are going to get punished by God.

But Vice President Pence is not the only Republican who's ready to buck that backlash.

Here's the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Wearing simple face coverings is not about protecting ourselves.

It is about protecting everyone we encounter. And here's the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy. Every American has a responsibility. They should wear a mask.

President Trump, of course, is still proudly going without a mask and planning more indoor rallies

between now and election day. So Democrat Joe Biden is happy to join

those other Republicans who are going the other way. Everyone needs to wear a mask in public,

period, period. Wear a mask. It may be inconvenient. It may be uncomfortable, but it's the right thing to do as an American.

As COVID-19 cases skyrocket in the Sunbelt states, Trump's handling of the pandemic may be

costly to him and to the GOP. Putting in play big prizes across the Sunbelt that had previously seen completely out of reach for Democrats.

That's Ron Brownstein of the Atlantic and CNN. We'll hear more from him later.

But first, a major question that still remains.

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