Trump allies organise and promote anti-lockdown protests

Harrisburg

REPUBLICAN politicians and individuals affiliated with President Donald Trump's re-election campaign are organising or promoting anti-lockdown protests across key electoral battleground states, despite the White House's own cautious guidance on relaxing restrictions, interviews with two dozen people involved show.

In Michigan, the organisers of last week's rally against Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer's stay-at-home order aimed at combating the coronavirus pandemic are involved in the Republican president's re-election effort, a Reuters review of their profiles and interviews with them show.

In other swing states, such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and North Carolina, Republican lawmakers, party leaders and Trump allies encouraged their social media followers to join the protests, often organised by conservative activists and pro-gun-rights groups, and attended the events themselves.

Their actions contradict the Trump administration's recommendations for a slow and phased reopening, as well as warnings from its own medical experts that opening the economy too fast risks a resurgence of the novel coronavirus that has infected almost 810,000 people in the United States and killed over 45,000 - the world's highest number of cases and deaths.

A bipartisan majority of Americans - 88 per cent of Democrats and 55 per cent of Republicans - also want to continue to shelter in place despite the impact on the economy, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday.

Regardless, many Trump supporters saw his criticism of Democratic governors for going too far with economic restrictions, and his recent tweets calling for those states to be "liberated", as endorsing their cause, protest organisers and Republican officials said.

They said there had been no communication with the Trump administration or his election campaign over the protests.

The Trump campaign declined to answer whether it had been involved with the protests, referring instead to Mr Trump's daily coronavirus briefings in which he has expressed sympathy for the protesters, saying he understands their frustration.

Several of the main organisers of the Lansing, Michigan, protest that police estimated drew about 4,000 people have ties to the Trump campaign, and are deeply involved in state Republican politics.

Among them is Meshawn Maddock, who sits on the national advisory board of Women for Trump 2020, an organising and fundraising arm of Trump's re-election.

Ms Maddock, whose Twitter profile pictures her with Nr Trump and also says she is a co-chair of his campaign in Michigan, said the Trump campaign had given her no messaging and she was only acting in her capacity as a concerned citizen.

Marian Sheridan, who was a founder of Michigan Trump Republicans and serves as the grassroots vice chair for Michigan's Republican Party, was also involved in organising the protest.

She described the protest as an apolitical backlash to Ms Whitmer's guidance, seen as one of the strictest in the country.

Ms Whitmer is widely seen as a possible running mate for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in November's election. "You see the people with the Trump signs, but people shouldn't just jump to conclusions that these are only Republicans out there. Everyone is being so hurt by this," Ms Sheridan said.

Chris Gustafson, the Trump campaign's Michigan spokesman, reiterated that neither the Republican National Committee nor Trump's national campaign had any role in the Michigan protest. Still, the Trump campaign has seized on the anti-shutdown backlash to drive new talking points on the economy: Democrats are killing small businesses, while Mr Trump is the only leader able to both fix the coronavirus-ravaged economy and slow down the pandemic, emails sent by Trump campaign aides show. REUTERS