He absolutely should have known better. He legitimized all sorts of completely made up claims about the reasons masks don't work, none of which had any sort of evidence backing them up, and all of them were immediately discarded when he changed course. What evidence ever existed that would make one think that say, wearing a mask would increase risk by making people touch their face more? Where is the study? Where is the study that disproved that study? None of that BS was ever based on anything, there was never any doubt that masks work. The idea that he changed his position because of new evidence is total bull.