Economist Stephen Moore, who is on President Trump’s council tasked with reopening the country, said he is helping plan a protest of Wisconsin’s state-at-home order and compared those protesting such directives to Rosa Parks.
Moore said in a YouTube video posted by a libertarian think tank this week that he was working on a “drive-in” in Wisconsin to protest the state’s stay-at-home order issued by Gov. Tony Evers (D). Evers extended the order this week until May 26.
“They’re going to shut down the Capitol. Shh. Don’t tell anybody,” Moore said of those protesting the order.
“This is a great time for civil disobedience. We need to be the Rosa Parks here and protest against these government injustices,” he added later.
Moore made similar comments in an interview with The Washington Post published Friday.
“I think there’s a boiling point that has been reached and exceeded,” he told the newspaper.
“I call these people the modern-day Rosa Parks — they are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties,” he added.
Moore’s comments drew pushback from some on social media.
“Could you have imagined the outcome if Rosa brought a gun to the bus?” panned Scott Huffman, a Democratic congressional candidate from North Carolina.
Conservative commentator and vocal Trump critic Bill Kristol called the remark “at once strikingly stupid and deeply offensive.”
Moore maintained during an interview on CBS News on Friday that the Trump administration has waited too long to reopen the economy.
“I think actually think we should have started this a week or two ago,” Moore said. “I think we lean way too much in the direction of keeping the economy shut down to try to save every life, not realizing that we’re causing huge hardship for citizens — again, people at the bottom and businesses — and we’re going to suffer a big loss of living standards because of this.”
Protesters against their states’ stay-at-home orders took to the streets in several states this week. In Wisconsin, plans for a “Freedom Rally” were announced for April 24 after the governor extended his state’s stay-at-home order this week.
Moore said in the YouTube video that he had been in talks with the protest organizers and noted that an unnamed donor had pledged to “pay the bail and legal fees” for anyone who gets arrested during the rally.
“We’re going to see a lot more of [the protests],” Moore said. “So this is a great time, gentleman and ladies, for civil disobedience.”
Many health experts and state leaders, such as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), have repeatedly stressed that more widespread testing is needed before the country can reopen safely.
Moore’s plan to support the protests comes after Trump on Thursday rolled out a three-phase strategy to reopen parts of the country. However, Trump took to Twitter on Friday, issuing a series of tweets calling to “LIBERATE” Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia, all states that are currently under stay-at-home orders with Democratic governors.