Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) stated in no uncertain terms on Thursday that reopening the economy right now during the COVID-19 outbreak really isn’t an option, despite President Donald Trump’s wishes.
“It’d really be the worst possible time for us to try to put more people out there and endanger them,” the governor said during an interview on NBC’s “3rd Hour of TODAY.”
Hogan, who leads the National Governors Association, mentioned that he and his colleagues would be speaking to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence later on in the day to discuss the federal government’s guidelines.
However, there are several “building blocks” that all the states need to attain before they allow non-essential businesses to reopen, according to Hogan: Increased testing, the ability for health experts to do contact tracing, procuring all the PPEs that medical professionals need and ensuring the hospitals have the overall capability to handle the outbreak.
“Everybody wants to get our economy back and get people back to work and get our small businesses open,” Hogan said. “But we also want to make sure we do it in a safe way and we’re not just ramping things back up and endangering the lives of thousands of people.”
He isn’t the only governor to push back against Trump’s demand to reopen the economy, or even the only GOP governor to do so: Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) and Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) have also said their states weren’t ready to go back to business, and Democratic governors have agreed.
Watch Hogan below:
