The shift was primarily motivated by floundering poll numbers, a source familiar with Trump’s thinking says

The image appears to show Trump wearing a mask with the presidential seal at his visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center earlier this month — his first and only time so far donning a facial covering in public after months of refusing to be seen doing so in public amid the coronavirus pandemic.

For months, aides tried to get Trump to wear a mask, saying they could have “MAGA”, “Trump-Pence 2020” or even the American flag printed on them. But he steadfastly refused and only wore a mask once in public.

But it wasn’t until a meeting with campaign aides at the White House last week, where aides bluntly told him even internal numbers showed Americans didn’t approve of his response, that Trump relented, according to an official who attended that meeting.

Trump’s agreement to don a mask in public at Walter Reed came after heavy “pleading” by aides, according to a presidential adviser, who urged the President to set an example for his supporters by wearing a mask on the visit. But Trump was reluctant, in part, because he didn’t want to give in to media pressure.

But as the number of coronavirus cases grew across several states — including key Republican and battleground states and more Republican officials publicly endorsed mask-wearing in an attempt to depoliticize it, efforts to convince Trump to support wearing a mask ramped up.

Earlier in the spring, Trump mocked Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden for wearing a mask, and during a press briefing in April, he suggested that it wouldn’t seem presidential.

“(S)omehow sitting in the Oval Office behind that beautiful Resolute Desk … I think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens. I don’t know, somehow I don’t see it for myself. Maybe I’ll change my mind,” Trump said at the time.