Radio host and former California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder slammed California’s mask mandates as a “joke,” following Sunday’s Super Bowl LVI during which multiple celebrities were seen maskless, despite Los Angeles’ other mask requirements.
“If you go to a restaurant here in L.A. County you are supposed to show proof you’ve been vaccinated,” Larry Elder told Fox News’ Bill Hemmer on “America’s Newsroom.” “Walk in with a mask. Sit at a table, remove the mask. All servers are wearing masks. As you saw at the Super Bowl, 78,000 people not wearing masks, although remember the L.A. mayor wasn’t wearing a mask the other day at the NFC championship game. He was holding his breath. 78,000 people were holding their breath the entire game.”
“The whole thing is a joke,” Elder continued. “They were handing out N-95 masks for everybody entering the stadium. The only concession stand that didn’t make money was the facemask stands. Kids are going to school now and have to wear masks. Come July, a mandate that all kids have to be vaccinated and wear masks while the governor now is trying to ease the mandates, but he is caught between a rock and a hard place… I don’t know what the rules are.”
One figure who was the target of widespread criticism was Los Angeles Democrat Mayor Eric Garcetti, who was again photographed at the Super Bowl without a mask. When Garcetti was seen maskless at the NFC Championship game, he claimed he was “holding his breath.” After Garcetti’s second maskless moment in SoFi Stadium during the Super Bowl — which requires mask-wearing indoors and outdoors during events with more than 5,000 people — Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) mocked the mayor, tweeting, “He’s really good at holding his breath.”
He’s really good at holding his breath. https://t.co/6uaC0S9o4M
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) February 14, 2022
On February 2, asked about photos of him maskless with Los Angeles Lakers icon Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Garcetti stated, “I’ll take personal responsibility, and if it makes you and everyone else happy — or even the photographs with people where literally I’m holding my breath for two seconds — I won’t even do that,” Deadline reported.
“I wore my mask the entire game,” Garcetti protested. “When people ask for a photograph, I hold my breath and I put it here and people can see that. There is a zero percent chance of infection from that.”
He added, “I won’t pull it down for two seconds anymore — that’s easy. But to me, it is crystal clear that nobody has been endangered by that and I’m trying to model the good behavior of making sure we wear this (for the) entire game,” The Daily Mail noted.
Other notable celebrities who attended the Super Bowl without masks were LeBron James, Charlize Theron, Jennifer Lopez, Ben Affleck, Jay-Z, Ellen DeGeneres, Will Ferrell, and Dwayne Johnson, a.k.a “The Rock.”
Yet kids around the country will be required to wear masks at school this morning pic.twitter.com/C9t8N2WKMs
— Fedup (@Fedup2479) February 14, 2022
Ian Haworth is an Editor and Writer for The Daily Wire. Follow him on Twitter at @ighaworth.
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