Juan Williams calls anti-coronavirus lockdown protesters a ‘vocal minority’ that ‘deserves to be heard’
Protests ramp up against stay-at-home orders
President Trump tweets that Michigan’s governor should make a deal with the protesters; reaction and analysis on ‘The Five.’
Juan Williams reacted on «The Five» Friday to protests against coronavirus lockdown orders that have roiled several states.
In Michigan, demonstrators showed up at the State Capitol Thursday to protest Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and her sweeping executive orders shuttering businesses and restricting general commerce.
Williams said those protesters deserve to have their voices heard but added that they should stop short of «intimidation» and brandishing firearms at the Capitol.
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«We do need reasonable people around here, because to me it’s pretty clear that if you look at the public opinion on this, 80 percent … say that they are fine with shelter-in-place [orders],» Williams said. «I think it’s like more than half of Republicans and Democrats say another month does not bother them, even people who are unemployed at the moment as a result.»
He characterized the demonstrators as a «vocal minority» who have an «important message to deliver.»
«I don’t like the guns and the intimidation. I don’t like that at all,» Williams said. «But I think that they deserve to be heard, and as long as the governors are trying to explain to the citizens what they are doing, that they are operating in terms of the science, I think that we have to give the governors leeway to make those calls.
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«I think that if they are being unreasonable, let’s have a discussion and challenge it,» he added, «but that’s not what we are hearing from most Americans at this juncture.»
Demonstrators have also recently assembled to protest executive shutdown orders in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Kentucky, Virginia and Maryland.
