U.S. Senator Doug Jones of Alabama puts on a protective mask before making a public appearance: Google

By Glynn Wilson –

While members of the Trump administration continue to send mixed signals to people around the country and the world about the novel coronavirus, the amount of testing going on and its economic impacts, at least one moderate Senator from a very conservative state in the Deep South continues to send the right, consistent message on cable news.

U.S. Senator Doug Jones, the Democrat from Birmingham, took the president and vice president to task on Wednesday in an appearance on CNN, calling on Trump and Pence to do a better job of leading the country by setting an example and wearing masks in public appearances.

“I would like to see the administration, the president, the vice president — whenever they are out, they need to be wearing a mask,” Senator Jones said on CNN.

“I think part of what we do as public officials is to set an example, and I think we have to set an example,” he said. “I’ve been trying to do that in my home state for the last six weeks or seven weeks, set an example, try to tell people it’s OK. It’s not a cultural shock to wear a mask out in public these days because I want to protect your health, and I want you to protect mine.”

Jones also took a swipe at Republican Senators and staff who he said were riding the Senate subway at the Capitol on Tuesday without face masks.

The ideological, partisan overtones of requiring masks have been growing stronger for weeks, according to the Washington Post, with Republican leaders less likely to take precautions and Republican voters following suit, even publicly scorning people who show up in public places wearing gloves and masks.

Pence has been seen wearing a mask in some recent appearances, but not in others, and the president failed to wear one during a tour last week of a factory making masks in Phoenix, Arizona.

Jones said in his CNN appearance that “social distancing” and wearing masks are more important than ever as states seek to reopen parts of their economies.

“People, right now, I think they’re so anxious to get out, they’re listening to the messages about opening, and they’re not listening as much to the messages about what you need to do to protect your health and your neighbor’s health,” he said. “If we can do that, we are going to keep the numbers down.”

Jones appeared remotely from his office on Tuesday rather than in the room during a Senate hearing featuring top administration health officials, and questioned the amount of testing for coronavirus in the U.S. compared to South Korea.

The experts recognized that, “We are inadequate in testing,” he said, “we need more testing.”

“We should learn the lessons from the past,” he said on CNN. “The key is we’ve got to start ramping that up now. We don’t have time to wait. There is a sense of urgency despite what Senator McConnell said about this next stimulus package. There is a hell of a sense of urgency with regard to testing, contact tracing and making sure that we have a quarantine plan in place for when we do see these spikes.”

He said we should take the opportunity this summer to learn the lessons from this or face dire consequences.

“We’ve got to seize those opportunities,” he said, “or as Dr. Fauci said, there’s going to be more needless suffering and more needless deaths.”

Alabama surpassed 10,000 confirmed cases this week with 450 deaths, while the numbers in the U.S. stand at more than 82,000 deaths and over 1.3 million cases.

The issue over whether public officials should set an example by wearing masks in public has become a public controversy all over cable news.