Whitmer says Michigan Trump rallies are potential ‘superspreader’ events and violate her orders

Gov. Whitmer Jill Biden

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Jill Biden answer questions from reporters during an event held by the Biden campaign on Tuesday, Sept. 15 in Battle Creek, Mich. (Nicole Hester | MLive.com)

BATTLE CREEK, MI -- Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said large political rallies held by President Donald Trump in recent weeks violate her executive orders limiting public gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whitmer, a Democrat and a national co-chair of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, said Trump is “luring people" to come out during a global pandemic. The president held an outdoor rally that drew an estimated crowd of 10,000 people to Freeland last week and his son held a rally in Harrison Township Monday evening that attracted hundreds of supporters -- attendees at both events largely avoided social distancing and wearing face coverings.

Whitmer issued executive orders limiting outdoor social gatherings and organized events to 100 attendees throughout most of the state. Her orders also limit indoor events to 10 people, but there the orders include exemptions for First Amendment-protected events.

The governor said Trump’s rallies violate her orders when asked by MLive during a campaign event with Biden’s wife. Jill Biden visited Grand Rapids to tour a farm and held a discussion with military families in Battle Creek. Both events were closed to the public.

“They violate the executive orders without question,” Whitmer said. “They fly in the face of the best science. They fly in the face of what the president has acknowledged to Bob Woodward he knew when he was out tweeting ‘liberate Michigan.’”

“We have taken some steps to ensure these venues understand what the law is and I don’t know that there’s a whole lot more to add on at this juncture,' she added.

Public health officials warn that close gatherings of unrelated people raise the risk of coronavirus exposure. There are 6.5 million confirmed cases in the U.S. and 193,705 deaths linked to COVID-19 as of Monday, according to the CDC, including 6,601 deaths in Michigan.

The governor referenced reporting by a Washington Post journalist and author who released several interviews with Trump about the coronavirus response. Trump was recorded in February acknowledging that the virus was airborne and more deadly than the flu.

Trump was a vocal critic of Whitmer’s orders to close down businesses and limit public gatherings this spring. In another interview recorded on April 13, the president called COVID-19 “a killer” and “the plague.” Three days later, he tweeted a call for Whitmer to rescind her executive orders.

Trump also criticized Whitmer’s orders during his campaign rally in Saginaw County last week. The president said Whitmer “doesn’t have a clue, she’s like Joe (Biden).”

“Tell your governor to open up your state,” Trump said. “You know it’s all Democrat governors and I think they do it for political reasons.”

Whitmer noted that former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain died due to complications of COVID-19 after attending a Trump rally in Tulsa earlier this year.

“This is the exact kind of thing that creates potential superspreader events,” Whitmer said. “My job as governor of Michigan is to ensure I do everything I can to protect everyone in this state, whether they’re inclined to be at an event on one side of the aisle or the other.”

The Trump campaign handed out masks and hand sanitizer to attendees at its recent rallies. In Harrison Township, supporters had their temperature read at a check-in table which displayed a sign stating attendees acknowledge an “inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place where people are present.”

Biden’s campaign events in Michigan have been much more restrained. The former vice president didn’t open his stops in the metro Detroit area to the public, and Jill Biden didn’t allow members of the public into her visits to Grand Rapids and Battle Creek Tuesday.

Note: A previous version of this story incorrectly included attendance limits on gatherings from a previous executive order.

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