US President Donald Trump has addressed his recent tweets calling to “liberate” Virginia, Minnesota and Michigan — three political swing states that have Democratic governors.
He said the governors who are implementing federal guidelines for stay-at-home orders to deal with the coronavirus are being “too tough.”
On Virginia, he said,
"What they've done is very powerful. You know you could get the same result with doing a little bit less."
He then went off on a tangent about the Second Amendment and claimed — without proof — that,
"They want to take their guns away."
Virginia has declared that gun stores are not essential businesses during the pandemic.
“I think some things are too tough,” Trump said during Friday’s White House press briefing.
Asked whether those states should lift their stay-at-home orders, Trump said, “No, but I think elements of what they’ve done are too much. It’s just too much.”
The President said he wasn’t concerned about protesters spreading the coronavirus among participants attending demonstrations calling for states to reopen.
“No, these are people expressing their views. I see the way they are and I see the way they’re working and they seem to be very responsible to me, but they’re been treated a little bit rough,” he said.