White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway on Monday jabbed at the governors overseeing stay-at-home orders that have sparked Trump-approved protests.
Conway admitted to Fox News host Sandra Smith that the protesters were violating the governors’ social distancing guidelines, backed by the White House, aimed at halting the spread of COVID-19.
“But at the same time, some of these governors have physically distanced from common sense,” she added.
The adviser asserted that the protesters were “not fomenting domestic rebellion.”
“I look at those people and I see the forgotten men and the forgotten women economically,” she told Smith.
Conway also repeated President Donald Trump’s accusation that several governors have “gone too far” in their efforts to stop the virus.
“Some have been more concerned about, I think, controlling the populations than protecting them,” she said. “And the President is just making that clear.”
Protests against the stay-at-home orders have erupted over the past several days, with demonstrators (some of them armed and waving Trump flags) crowding together at their state capitals to demand that businesses deemed “non-essential” be allowed to reopen.
However, White House COVID-19 task force member Dr. Anthony Fauci warned on Monday that protesters would be shooting themselves in the foot if they got what they wanted and went back to work at this time.
“If you jump the gun and go into a situation where you have a big spike, you’re going to set yourself back,” he said. “So as painful as it is to go by the careful guidelines of gradually phasing into a reopening, it’s going to backfire.”
Watch Conway below:
Conway says some of governors facing protests "have physically distanced from common sense." pic.twitter.com/VJA89YwTle
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) April 20, 2020
