Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer lashed out at the freedom protesters who surrounded the capitol on Wednesday, telling reporters they were “endangering people’s lives.”
Breitbart News reported live from the scene, which featured hundreds of people on the capitol lawn and thousands more in their cars, honking horns, blasting patriotic music, and waving American flags.
Whitmer, whom Joe Biden has said is on his short list for the vice presidential nomination, denounced the protesters, who were calling on her to rescind the onerous restrictions she had placed on the state’s citizens and let them go back to work.
“We know that this demonstration is going to come at a cost to people’s health,” Whitmer told reporters.
“We know that when people gather that way without masks, they were within close proximity, they were touching one another, that that’s how COVID-19 spreads,” she said.
She went on to blame the protesters for further restrictions she may impose in the future.
“So the sad irony here is that the protest is that they don’t like being in this stay home order,” she said, “and they may have just created the need to lengthen it.”
She said she wouldn’t predict that “a certain percentage” of protesters would fall ill, “but I know that, just by congregating, they’ve made that a real possibility, that they’ve endangered other people’s lives.”
Breitbart News observed many protesters wearing masks and maintaining social distances, but witnessed no handshakes or other forms of physical contact.
A spokeswoman for the Michigan Conservative Coalition said she was overwhelmed by the response.
Breitbart News learned a formal recall effort is in the works.
Kyle Olson is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter and like him on Facebook.