Governors cry foul over President Donald Trump's support to thousands of people protesting against the coronavirus restrictions across the United States. The POTUS defended the protesters, saying some governors are overly applying the stay-at-home order, which the leading health officials from his own administration advised.
"I really believe that they're being unreasonable," the U.S. President said, referring to Michigan and Virginia Democratic governors Gretchen Whitmer and Governor Ralph Northam. He revealed that there are a lot of protests going on in the two states, as some of the governors seemed to be carried away of overly applying the restriction orders.
According to South China Morning Post, Donald Trump questioned Whitmer's strict implementation of social distancing and staying at home, although it was imposed by his government. Also, he criticized Northam's gun-control measures, which he also signed over a week ago, though it had nothing to do with the coronavirus outbreak. With these orders, people started to protest across the U.S., such as California, Michigan, Ohio, and New Jersey.
In Annapolis, Maryland, a bunch of vehicles drove in circles and honked in protest as they all wanted to lift the communities' lockdown to continue business as usual. These protests began when governors started weighing their option to reopen their economies without easing restrictions to keep their people safe from a new surge of infection.
Without adequate testing capability, several governors across the U.S. criticized Donald Trump's support to the protesters, saying it's "dangerous" and doesn't "make any sense." "I don't know any other way to characterize it," Democrat Washington Governor Jay Inslee said on ABC's This Week, via NBC News. He explained that whey had order from governors, both Republicans and Democrats, to protect people's health and save their lives, but they have a president who encourage "insubordination and illegal activity" instead.
Inslee added that Donald Trump's support to the protesters could be dangerous, as it could incite people to ignore the government's order that could save their lives. Sadly, backing up theses protests could limp their national efforts to keep the public safe from the coronavirus.
He also revealed his frustration over Donald Trump, who seemed to ask people to ignore the medical experts' advice and his own guidelines, which he set beforehand, not to open Michigan or Virginia yet. Before these governors can lift the lockdown, these states have to reduce the number of confirmed cases and deaths first, but it has yet to happen. As of this writing, Michigan has almost 31,500 confirmed cases and nearly 2,400 fatalities, while Virginia has over 8,500 COVID-19 patients and about 300 deaths.
