Who’s Organizing the Lockdown Protests?

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2020

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Across the United States, protests are erupting against orders to remain at home, close nonessential businesses and limit travel. So who is behind these protests? And what do they stand to gain? Guest: Jim Rutenberg, a writer-at-large for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading: Conservative groups in a loose coalition have tapped their networks to drive up turnout at recent rallies and financed lawsuits, polling and research to combat the stay-at-home orders.Crowd sizes at the protests remain small — ranging from a few dozen to several thousand at a rally in Michigan. Polls suggest that most Americans are in favor of cautious lockdown measures.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	From New York Times, I'm Michael Babaro. This is the Daily.
0:04.0	Today, across the U.S. protests are erupting against orders to remain at home and to restrict
0:20.0	people's movements. Jim Mudenberg, on who is behind those protests and what it is they
0:28.3	stand to gain from them. It's Wednesday, April 22nd. Jim, tell us about these protests.
0:40.3	Well, it's start to week ago, Monday, April 13th, kind of out of the blue seemingly.
0:46.3	Here is a group of protesters show up in Columbus, Ohio.
0:56.3	And demand that Governor DeWine, Republican governor, who's been post very strict state home restrictions,
1:11.3	they're demanding reopen the state, reopen the economy. Let's get back to work.
1:16.3	Then the next day, there's another rally this time with the same demands in North Carolina and Raleigh.
1:45.3	And this time the protest results in an arrest. Then the next day, you have a very big protest,
1:56.3	the biggest protest in Michigan. And this one is the biggest one we've seen called Operation
2:02.3	Gridlock. It's a dreary day in Lansing and all around the state capitals,
2:10.3	you can see our lines of cars.
2:19.3	Hunking. They're passengers and their drivers chanting freedom.
2:25.3	Freedom is a side job, fear is a choice.
2:28.3	Their windows open, signs saying, end the lockdown, freedom overturiny, even
2:34.3	the narrow-free the slaves during a plague.
2:41.3	And it's unwillingly that we're taking unemployment. We want to go back to work.
2:46.3	It's time for our state to be opened up. We're tired of not being able to buy the things that we need.
2:51.3	The only star is open or Walmart, that's ridiculous, that's why we're here.
2:56.3	And all of it is directed at Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who has put in some of the toughest state home restrictions in the whole entire country.
3:05.3	And she has banned going to garden shops. So one of the protestors says to a TV reporter,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The New York Times, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The New York Times and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.