Time to Reopen: The Fight Could Be Messy for Governors

The road to re-opening the economy will be a messy fight that the governors of each state will have to handle. We are already seeing protests and lawsuits over stay-at-home orders and people wanting to get back to work. And while the administration has issued guidelines for states to open back up, all the details and final say is left up to the governors. Another source of conflict could be states moving faster than the willingness of cities in re-opening. Brett Samuels, White House reporter at The Hill, joins us for the fight over coronavirus restrictions.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Tuesday Ape. I'm Oscar Ramires from the Daily Dive
podcast in Los Angeles, and this is your daily coronavirus update.
The road to reopening the economy will be a messy
fight that the governors of each state will have to handle.
We are already seeing protests and lawsuits over stay at
home orders and people wanting to get back to work.

(00:20):
And while the administration has issued guidelines for states to
open back up, all the details and the finals say
is left up to the governors. Another source of conflict
could be states moving faster than the willingness of cities
and reopening. Brett Samuel's White House reporter at the Hill
joins us for the fight over coronavirus restrictions. Thanks for
joining us, Brett, Thanks for having me. We're all looking

(00:41):
head now to this next battleground for reopening the economy,
and it's gonna be this battle that governors have. It's
gonna be a messy fight overlifting all of these restrictions
that we have in place right now, whether it be
just on normal residents staying at home or businesses and
how they're going to be operating. And we're seeing all
these clashes right now and more are coming. We're seeing

(01:03):
some of these protests happening in different states, in Ohio
and Michigan. The President is tweeting out liberate parts of
the country, you know, Liberate Minnesota, Virginia, Michigan. So we're
starting to see what's going to happen with this. Brett
tell us how messy this could get. It's sort of
setting up for, essentially, you know, a fight between some

(01:23):
of these protesters who already after a few weeks of
having their states in lockdown and having businesses shut down
as part of an effort to slow the spread of
the virus, they're already getting impatient. They want to see
businesses reopen. They feel their rights are being infringed upon
by having governors essentially do what they feel is overreach.
These protesters feel is overreach and infringing on their civil rights.

(01:45):
So you have some tensions there, and then President Trump
is really kind of adding fuel to the fire to
an extent by essentially backing these protesters. His administration last
week gave governors the power and said governors are the
ones who will be able to side when to lift
the social distancing guidelines. But he's really complicating their jobs,
there by appearing to give more weight and more merits

(02:08):
to these protests. And that's the big thing is the
President and the guidelines did provide for the states to
make those decisions, and they have to. I mean, really,
the way this is affecting the country is different according
to every state, and then beyond that even too, even
smaller down to the counties and the cities. And you know,
the big word is gonna be is if there's gonna
be a resurgence. I can already see something happening where

(02:31):
a city here could reopen some things, nearby city maybe
not reopening things, and people are just crossing city boundaries
just to go enjoy some of those things that they
want to and then they're gonna go back to their
own communities. And so there could be a resurgence of
cases of this if something like that happens. Michigan Governor
Gretchen Whitmer is one of the governors in a particular
spot as well with this, because she's already facing two

(02:53):
lawsuits over the stay up home orders from both residents
and businesses. Like you said, it's different from city to city,
from county to county. So these governors, especially sort of
facing a difficult task where, for example, whether it's California,
whether it's Illinois, a lot of these states have sort
of these big metro areas where there's a high concentration

(03:14):
of cases, and then there are more rural parts of
the state where maybe the cases arn't as high. So
these governors are kind of having to balance whether maybe
they can open up parts of the state that are
seeing fewer infections. Uh So it's certainly a difficult task
for them, and the White House guidelines don't lay out
anything specific as far as you know, restricting travel from

(03:36):
whether it's a county to a county or a state
to a state, depending on whether one area has started
to lift its restrictions and another hasn't. So that's certainly
a concern, like you mentioned, And another concern just about
these protests is that we're seeing hundreds of people gathering
in these states for these demonstrations, and these are the
exact type of gatherings that public health experts say are

(03:56):
kind of a breeding ground for the virus, where if
one or two people in attendance have it, even if
they don't know, they could be spreading into others and
really sort of setting back their own cause and forcing
these restrictions to remain in place for longer. And it's
not the case at all of the protests, but I've
seen a lot of protesters out there without masks, without
face coverings. Maybe it could be defiance or whatnot. But

(04:16):
you're right, I mean, it could be a potential breeding gout,
and and we won't know for you know, a couple
of weeks if something like that really took place. There.
There are laws on the books that allow us to
restrict constitutional rights when there's emergency public health measures in place.
So I know there's this balance that the states have
to really dance on when it comes to this, because

(04:37):
the protesters are saying, you know, this is unconstitutional, things
like that, so they really have to be smart about this.
But there are laws on the books that allow us
to do those things. There are some precedents that give
governors and give executive officials those powers, and like you said,
in times of emergency, and this is certainly one of
those times. I mean, the federal government has declared a
state of emergency in all fifty states, so certainly these

(04:58):
governors sort of are ways in of rights to act
and impose some of these restrictions now, a specific stay
at home order, for example, there's less of a legal
precedent there, and as you've said, in Michigan, we've already
seen some groups take it to court to try and
push back. We've heard of conservative groups and allies of
the White House sort of urging the Justice Department and

(05:19):
the Attorney General to look at potential legal ways to
challenge some of these stay at home orders. So I
think the longer these orders remain in place, there's a
greater chance that we continue to see sort of the
legal aspect of this flare up and some fights in
court potentially. And this is where you see a lot
of the political flares come up as well. When the
President tweets out, he's tweeting out about states with democratic

(05:41):
governors and things like that, and a lot of these
protests seem to be happening in some of those areas. Also,
are there any Republican governors that are facing some type
of scrutiny on this, because I know a lot of
them were very reluctant to issue those stay at home
orders in the very beginning. That's certainly an interesting aspect.
For example, one governor who was really at the forefront
of this and very on top of sort of shutting

(06:01):
his state down as Mike DeWine in Ohio, who is
a Republican. And we've seen protests in these states where
there are Republican governors. Ohio is one. There was a
smaller protest in Florida last week. Idaho, there's a protest Texas.
There was a smattering of people who gathered. So the
protests themselves are certainly not limited to states with democratic governors,
but the president's criticism has very noticeably been limited to

(06:26):
Virginia and Minnesota and Michigan, which are three states with
democratic governors, and our states that are considered to an
extent at least swing states or states that the President
is trying to turn his way in. So in November
that is so it's hard not to see some kind
of political lens on the way the President is talking
about these protests. Well, it's important that we get this right.

(06:48):
We don't want another resurgence in the country of cases
that could overwhelm the healthcare system. So really that is
this next phase. How do we do it and how
do we do it right? Brett Samuel's White House reporter
at the Hill. Thank you very much for joining us.
Thanks Oscar. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been your
daily coronavirus update. Don't forget that. For today's big news stories,

(07:10):
you can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast
every Monday through Friday. So follow us on I Heart
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