Pollster Frank Luntz: Divide on Masks 'Most Ridiculous' I've Seen

Frank Luntz, Founder and Chairman of Luntz Global (Donald Bowers/Getty Images for GLG)

By Sandy Fitzgerald | Monday, 30 November 2020 11:29 AM EST

The political divide surrounding wearing masks in an effort to slow the coronavirus pandemic is the "most ridiculous behavior I have probably seen in politics in more than a decade," Republican pollster Frank Luntz said Monday.

"It makes no sense to me," said Luntz on CNBC's "Squawk Box." "If you're wearing a mask, people assume you're a Biden supporter. If you're not wearing a mask, they assume you're a Trump supporter. This is insane. You wear a mask if you're out in public; you wear a mask if you're too close to other individuals, and it should not have anything to do with politics."

Such politicization makes public health unsafe, Luntz said, as there are so many people whose "behavior is determined more by your politics than by your own commitment to personal safety."

Luntz's comments came while discussing a recent study he participated in with the De Beaumont Foundation, which found that certain words and phrases encourage people to behave how they should where the pandemic is concerned, but other phrases do not.

"If you talk about the pandemic, then listeners and viewers take it seriously," Luntz said. "If you just call it the coronavirus, if you talk about the coronavirus, it's something that doesn't impact them."

The insistence on the "war-like language" used by President Donald Trump and other government officials turns some people off and makes them ignore what is being said, said Luntz. He added that there is also an issue with stressing the "warp speed" initiative behind the release of a vaccine.

However, he said, Republicans who were studied "love the speed" of the vaccine development but are "less likely" to want to receive the vaccine, but "Democrats are more hostile, nervous about the vaccine, but more likely to take it."

Luntz also addressed growing calls to mandate that Americans be required to get a COVID-19 vaccine and said that such orders are not the way to go.

"You've used the word required and you should be using the word 'protocol,'" Luntz said, "If you're going to make it sound like it's a government mandate, you're going to get 40%, maybe even 50% who refuse to take it."