Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, a rightwing Tea Party Republican well-known for not wearing a mask while lawmaking, has tested positive for COVID-19.
Gohmert was scheduled to travel to Midland, Texas with President Trump on Air Force One, but a pre-flight test came up positive and he had to travel separately.
He later posted a video on Twitter confirming the diagnosis and theorizing about how he contracted COVID-19, which he blamed on fiddling with his mask too much during this week’s House Judiciary Committee hearing with Attorney General William Barr.
“It is interesting, I don’t know about everybody, but when I have a mask on I’m moving it to make it comfortable, and I can’t help but wonder if that put some germs in the mask — keep your hands off your mask,” Gohmert said in the video.
While Gohmert insists he has dutifully worn his mask in the past several days, his mask-free antics on Capitol Hill were covered by CNN only last month.
“I don’t have the coronavirus, turns out as of yesterday I’ve never had it. But if I get it, you’ll never see me without a mask,” Gohmert told CNN at the time.
Ironically, Gohmert would go on to become an asymptomatic carrier of the virus, as he admitted on Wednesday.
Gohmert isn’t the only Texas Republican to test positive for COVID-19 on his way to meet the president. Congressional candidate Wesley Hunt, who is challenging Democrat Rep. Lizzie Fletcher for her Houston area seat, also confirmed on Twitter this morning he had tested positive. Social media postings show Hunt attended in-person campaign events without wearing a mask prior to his diagnosis.
Photo: Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images
Fernando covers Texas politics and government at the Texas Signal. Before joining the Signal, Fernando spent two years at the Houston Chronicle and previously interned at Houston’s NPR station News 88.7. He is a graduate of the University of Houston, Jack J. Valenti School of Communication, and enjoys reading, highlighting things, and arguing on social media. You can follow him on Twitter at @fernramirez93 or email at fernando@texassignalarchive.com
