Dr. Deborah Birx called the crowds who gathered this week in the Michigan state capitol without masks 'devastatingly worrisome.' ...
Dr. Deborah Birx called the crowds who gathered this week in the Michigan state capitol without masks 'devastatingly worrisome.'
Birx, one of President Trump's top medical advisers on the coronavirus taskforce, was asked by 'Fox News Sunday' host Chris Wallace about some behaviors people around the country have been engaged in as governors mull whether to reopen states as the COVID-19 death toll continues to climb.
Wallace asked Birx about the demonstrators who barged into Michigan's state capitol on Thursday, who were not practicing social distancing - and instead were wielding weapons.
'It's devastatingly worriesome to me personally because if they go home and infect their grandmother or their grandfather who has a comorbid condition and they have a serious or very - or an unfortunate outcome, they will feel guilty for the rest of their lives,' Birx said.
'So we need to protect each other at the same time we're voicing our discontent,' Birx added.
Dr. Deborah Birx said Sunday that she found the Michigan protests 'devastatingly worrisome,' because demonstrators did not practice safe social distancing. Birx said she was concerned about protesters spreading COVID-19 to elderly family members
On Thursday, protesters - most without masks, and some with guns - showed up to the state capitol in Lansing, Michigan to protest the strict stay at home order put in place by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (right) told CNN's Jake Tapper (left) that she thought the protesters were 'not representative of who we are in Michigan,' pointing to the 'swastikas and Confederate Flags and nooses and people with assault rifles'
Some protesters showed up with guns to the Michigan state capitol on Thursday, demanding that businesses be reopened amid the coronavirus pandemic
A protester, who is not wearing a face mask, yells into the faces of Michigan State Police at the state Capitol on Thursday
Protesters have been showing up in Lansing, Michigan for weeks to protest the state's strict stay at home order enacted by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
President Trump gave a nod to the protesters - many of whom sport Trump gear - by tweeting 'LIBERATE Michigan' in mid-April.
Since then, the protests have not died down.
Whitmer was asked about the most recent protest on Sunday, in an interview on CNN's 'State of the Union' with Jake Tapper.
She said she understood that people were 'not all happy' with having to stay home.
She then characterized those who showed up to the capitol as a fringe minority in her state.
'And displays like the one that we saw at our capital is not representative of who we are in Michigan. There were swastikas and Confederate Flags and nooses and people with assault rifles,' Whitmer said. 'And that's the very - that's a small group of people, when you think about the fact that this is a state of almost 10 million people, the vast majority of whom are doing the right thing.'
Tapper asked the Democratic governor if she agreed with the head of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, Halie Soifer, who compared the Michigan protester to those in Charlottesville.
The Charlottesville 'Unite the Right' demonstration in 2017 brought together members of the KKK, neo-Nazis and other supporters of white supremacy.
'Well, some of the outrageousness of what happened at our capitol this week depicted some of the worst racism and awful parts of our history in this country,' Whitmer said. 'The Confederate Flags, and nooses, the swastikas, the behavior that you have seen in all of the clips is not representative of who we are in Michigan.'
Whitmer pointed out the obvious, 'we're in a global pandemic.'
'This isn't something we just negotiate ourselves out of and it's a political matter,' she said. 'This is a public health crisis that has taken the lives of over - of almost 70,000 Americans, has put 30 million people into unemployment.'
'We have lost in the last 24 hours almost the same number of Americans that were killed in 9/11,' she continued.
Whitmer pressed that it was the time to listen to health experts.
'Whether you agree with me or not, I'm working to protect your life if you live in the state of Michigan. I'm going to continue to do my job, regardless of what tweets come out or what polls come out or what people think that is - makes sense,' she said. 'We're going to listen to facts and science, because we have got to get this right.'
Independent Rep. Justin Amash, who's pursuing a third-party bid for the presidency, said while he thought Whitmer 'overreached in a lot of ways,' he knocked the protesters for being inappropriate.
'I totally denounce and condemn Nazi symbols that were used in some of the protests. I think it's a terrible idea to come into the capitol with weapons, bearing weapons, knowing that it might be perceived as some form of intimidation toward legislators,' the Michigan lawmaker said.
'So, I denounce those things. But everyone has the right to protest. And we're a state that cares about our rights, cares about our freedoms, and we're - we should work together with the governor,' he added.
And Ohio's Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, suggested that his own order on masks went too far.
'It becamse clear to me that that was just a bridge too far,' he said Sunday on ABC's 'This Week.' 'People were not going to accept the government telling them what to do.'
DeWine had instituted a statewide order for people to wear masks inside stores.
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