White House economic adviser Stephen Moore compared protesters in several states who are demanding an immediate end to "stay-at-home" anti-coronavirus efforts to civil rights icon Rosa Parks.
Moore, the conservative economic adviser to President Donald Trump, appeared on a YouTube program earlier this week praising the "You Can't Close Close America" protests, which have sprung up in Louisiana, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia and Minnesota over the past week. "This is a great time, gentlemen and ladies, for civil disobedience. We need to be the Rosa Parks here and protest against these government injustices," Moore told the "Freedom on Tap" YouTube show last Tuesday. He also spent much of the program detailing the massive economic penalties for shutting down U.S. businesses, particularly in regards to unemployment.
The comment stirred outrage as video showed some of the protesters held Confederate and swastika-adorned flags as they protested the stay-at-home orders outside capitol buildings in Wisconsin and Kentucky, among other states.
Trump emphatically offered his support Friday for the rally attendees who are defying state governor orders to shelter-in-place to curb the coronavirus spread, tweeting that each swing state must "LIBERATE" themselves from the COVID-19 lockdown measures.
LIBERATE MICHIGAN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2020
Speaking with The Washington Post in an article published Friday, Moore doubled down on his U.S. Civil Rights era comparison, adding: "I think there's a boiling point that has been reached and exceeded. I call these people the modern-day Rosa Parks - they are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties."
Newsweek reached out to the White House for additional remarks Saturday.
Rosa Parks was a legendary civil rights activist against racial segregation and rose to national prominence when on December 1, 1955, she was arrested for refusing to give her seat up to a white passenger on a Montgomery, Alabama bus.
Moore is a member of the White House council to reopen the country and a group of conservative leaders who are urging the government to reopen businesses across the country. How to reopen the country has been a topic discussed among state governors amid the pandemic.
"We can and we must do this," said Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott recently about his state. "We can do both, expand and restore the livelihoods that Texans want to have by helping them return to work. One thing about Texans, they enjoy working and they want to get back into the workforce. We have to come up with strategies on how we can do this safely."
Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who has been under pressure from demonstrators to reopen her state, indicated there might some easing in the rules in relation to COVID-19 stay-at-home restrictions. "I do hope to have some relaxing come May 1, but it's two weeks away and the information and the data and our ability to test is changing so rapidly it's hard to tell precisely where we'll be a week from now, much less two," she said in an ABC News interview Friday.
