Gretchen Whitmer (Photo: State of Michigan)
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who has been at odds with the Trump administration since the onset of the pandemic, rips Attorney General William Barr's latest remarks about Covid lockdowns and slavery.
"This is another unhinged distraction, and it's deeply disturbing that our chief law enforcement officer is propagating it," Whitmer said in remarks aired Sunday on Showtime's "The Circus," according to The Detroit News.
Barr made his controversial remarks about state lockdowns last Wednesday in northern Virginia at an event hosted by Michigan's Hillsdale College.
“Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history,” Barr said.
Whitmer was among the early group of governors to order a comprehensive lockdown of citizens and businesses, and President Trump encouraged residents to rebel via tweets.
Whitmer noted in the Showtime interview that statements like Barr's were made in swing states on the premise that "the road to the White House goes through the state of Michigan," The News reports.
"I guess that they’re not above using any tactic to try to either scare people, suppress the vote or inspire maybe some dangerous instincts that they’ve been stoking," she said.
The remarks have been met with sharp criticism by other public officials.
Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., called Barr’s remarks “the most ridiculous, tone-deaf, God-awful things I’ve ever heard”
“Slavery was not about saving lives. It was about devaluing lives,” he told CNN. “This pandemic is a threat to human life.”
