TRUMP TWEETS SUPPORT FOR ANTI-LOCKDOWN PROTESTS AS HUNDREDS PROTEST AGAINST CORONAVIRUS LOCKDOWN IN USA
After saying governors would decide when to reopen, Trump urges supporters to ‘LIBERATE’ some states led by Democrats.
In a provocative series of tweets on Friday, United States President Donald Trump appeared to support protest movements popping up around the country calling for an immediate end to the lockdowns imposed on Americans in an order to contain the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump began his tirade with a call to “LIBERATE MINNESOTA”. He quickly followed with two more missives calling for similar action in Michigan and Virginia. All three states are currently headed by Democratic governors, and Michigan is considered crucial to the president’s re-election bid in the November general election.
Trump’s tweet about Virginia, a state once solidly Republican that turned Democratic during the 2018 midterm elections, included a call to “save your great 2nd Amendment”. The state’s Governor, Ralph Northam, signed new laws last week that expanded background checks and imposed new limits on gun purchases.
Donald J. Trump@realDonaldTrump
The tweets – which were posted just moments after a report on Fox News Channel about the protests – marked a reversal from Trump’s tone on Thursday, when he said he would defer to state governors about when and how quickly to remove the quarantine orders. When asked about the protests on Thursday, Trump said he sided with the governors.
“I think they listen to me,” Trump said of the anti-lockdown protestors. “They seem to be protesters that like me and respect this opinion. And my opinion is the same as just about all of the governors.”
Responding to Trump’s tweets, Washington Governor Jay Inslee, a Democrat, accused the president of encouraging “illegal and dangerous acts”.
“He is putting millions of people in danger of contracting COVID-19. His unhinged rantings and calls for people to “liberate” states could also lead to violence. We’ve seen it before,” Inslee tweeted.
“The president is fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies – even while his own administration says the virus is real, it is deadly and we have a long way to go before restrictions can be lifted,” he added.
Protests against lockdowns
Conservative media hosts and some Republican leaders have in recent days started to bristle against the continued shutdowns, arguing that the damage being done to the economy and citizens’ livelihoods outweighs the strain being placed on the healthcare system.
In Minnesota, protesters in that state planned to gather in front of the governor’s mansion on Friday to protest against a stay-at-home order that has been in place since March 25 and businesses deemed non-essential have been closed since March 16.
In a social media post, the group behind the protest – calling itself “Liberate Minnesota” – wrote, “Minnesota citizens now is the time to demand Governor [Tim] Walz and our state legislators end this lock down! Thousands of lives are being destroyed right now. It is not the governor’s place to restrict free movement of Minnesota citizens!”
Also on Friday, residents of the state of New Jersey paraded a line of cars in front of Governor Phil Murphy’s office in the state capital, Trenton, chanting “no more fear” and “where is my bill of rights”.
Similar protests have popped up in states around the country, including Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Utah, and North Carolina. Mixed in among the US flags and hand-scrawled protest signs at most of the locations have been political signs supporting Trump and Vice President Mike Pence’s re-election campaign.
Protesters in Kentucky yelled, “Open up Kentucky” and “You’re not a king, we won’t kiss your ring” in the Kentucky capital of Frankfort, where Governor Andy Beshear, also a Democrat, was attempting to hold a news briefing on Wednesday.
In Utah, headed by Republican Governor Gary Herbert, the protesters called that state’s attempts to contain the coronavirus pandemic unconstitutional.
“The government, at all levels, has overstepped its authority in their request to ‘protect’ Americans from a virus,” Mary Burkett, a Republican candidate for Utah’s 2nd congressional district who participated in the demonstration, said in a news release. “The American citizen is perfectly capable of deciding how to best protect themselves.”
Protests come as US deaths exceed 31,000; survey finds most Americans worry about virus restrictions lifted too soon.
Hundreds of people have demonstrated in cities across the United States against coronavirus-related stay-at-home rules – with the explicit encouragement of President Donald Trump.
Some Americans, who live in parts of states with lower infection rates, have been made restless by restrictions that have more than 90 percent of the country under stay-at-home orders.
An estimated 400 people gathered in Concord, New Hampshire, according to an AFP news agency photographer, while a similar rally outside Maryland’s statehouse in Annapolis drew about 200 protesters.
More than 250 people showed up in the Texas capital of Austin, as such protests continued to spread and drew encouragement in certain Democratic-led states from tweets by Trump – who has said he favours a quick return to normal practices.
Protests have also taken place in Republican-led states like New Hampshire.
Their common demand was that the stay-at-home order for the state of 1.3 million people be called off before its scheduled May 4 end date.
Earlier this week, similar protests erupted in the capitols of Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia.
The demonstrations, which also featured large crowds of people neither practising social distancing nor wearing face coverings, angered governors who have been trying to bring coronavirus outbreaks under control.
As of Friday morning, New Hampshire had reported 1,287 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 37 deaths.
The US has by far the world’s largest number of confirmed coronavirus cases, with more than 706,000 and at least 31,000 deaths. New York state accounts for nearly half of those deaths.
Most Americans – by a two-to-one margin – worry about virus restrictions being lifted too soon, not too late, a recent Pew survey found.
But demonstrators found encouragement on Friday from the president himself, who in a series of tweets called to “LIBERATE” Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia – all states with Democratic governors – from stay-at-home orders.
While Trump agitates to get the country back up and running sooner rather than later as he faces re-election in November, the Pentagon announced on Saturday it was extending travel restrictions for its personnel until the end of June.
Trump has repeatedly called for the earliest possible return to normality as virus-related closings have had a crushing effect on American workers and businesses.
But health experts have cautioned that to avoid a second wave of infections as people return to work, extensive testing must be available to track infections, as well as contact tracing and antibody testing to learn who had been previously infected and might have some immunity.