A woman hoping for a haircut holds a sign, center, as protesters gather outside Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz' official residence Friday, April 17, 2020, in St. Paul, Minn., to call on him to loosen stay-at-home restrictions imposed across the state because of the coronavirus. The messages were directed at swing states where Democrats are governors.
Trump also tweeted for the liberation of Minnesota and Virginia, but gave nearly no insight as to what that meant aside from saying "LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment". All three states have seen protests erupt in recent days over their governors' stay-at-home orders and shuttering of non-essential businesses.
The tweets, fired off in rapid succession late Friday morning, drew condemnation from advocacy groups and other critics who said the president should be focusing his attention on the lagging federal response to the deadly virus outbreak, not urging people to revolt against state guidelines.
"LIBERATE MICHIGAN!" and "LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment". It is under siege!
Conservative TV and talk radio influencers encouraging protests: "People instinctively know now that however bad this is, it isn't as bad as they all told us", Rush Limbaugh told listeners on Thursday.
Democrats have said they want more funding for hospitals and local governments before they replenish the program. He also said, "There's death and there's problems in staying at home too".
"Government mandating sick people to stay home is called quarantine. It was built on an exact opposite principle, actually". Trump would obviously like to win the three states in the 2020 election; MI, in particular, is a key battleground state that Trump flipped by a small margin in 2016.
Similar protests are being organized across the country and in neighboring Wisconsin.
Kelly Mullin, who stood near a "don't tread on me" flag spread on the grass near the governor's mansion, said she brought her sons to the event to teach them a lesson about liberty.
As for Shea, he is speaking on Saturday at an online "Saving America" conference which will discuss an alleged erosion of rights "that's been ramped up in unprecedented ways during this Covid-19 crisis". According to The Hill, protesters in Michigan were "led by the Michigan Conservative Coalition", and they "stormed the Michigan Capitol on Wednesday demanding an end to the stay-at-home order", claiming the order was harming personal freedoms.
As of April 16, MI had reported 29,263 confirmed cases of coronavirus, with 2,093 deaths.
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!"
Citing Trump's statements that the "cure" for the coronavirus can not be worse than the disease, organizers say the shutdown of businesses and the economy has destroyed "thousands of lives". It is not the governor's place to restrict free movement of Minnesota citizens! "Gov. Walz you work for the citizens of this state!"
The group's Facebook page event photo shows a person's hands breaking free of rope ties.
A wave of planned anti-lockdown demonstrations that have broken out around the country to protest the efforts of state governments to combat the coronavirus pandemic with business closures and stay-at-home orders have included far-right groups as well as more mainstream Republicans.
Whitmer, who dismissed the stunt as "essentially a political rally", has emerged as a possible a running mate for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden.
