Fox News host defended anti-lockdown protesters who called Michigan's governor a Nazi as they displayed Confederate flags and swastikas

• Fox News opinion hosts have spent the week attacking a host of governors who've issued strict stay-home orders to contain the spread of the coronavirus and cheerleading those who are protesting the orders.
• On Friday, Fox News host Greg Gutfeld argued that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had wrongly tarred protesters who've accused her of being a Nazi by pointing out that they carried signs with swastikas.
• Some of the protesters carried signs likening Whitmer to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Others waved Confederate flags, many were armed, and some held Trump 2020 signs.
• Whitmer condemned the protesters, many of whom didn't wear masks or gloves when they gathered in close proximity to others outside the Capitol building, and called the protest "political."
• On Friday, less than 24 hours after telling Americans that the decision to ease coronavirus-related restrictions was up to governors, President Donald Trump tweeted a call to "LIBERATE" Michigan, Minnesota, and Virginia.
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Fox News opinion hosts have spent the week attacking a host of governors who've issued strict stay home orders to contain the spread of the coronavirus and cheerleading those who are protesting the orders and violating social distancing policies.

On Friday, Fox News host Greg Gutfeld argued that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer had wrongly tarred protesters who've accused her of being a Nazi by pointing out that they carried signs with swastikas on them during protests in Lansing this week. Gutfeld denied that any of the protesters were Nazis.

Some of the protesters carried signs likening Whitmer to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Others waved Confederate flags, many were armed, and some held Trump 2020 signs. The symbol of the Confederacy, which fought to preserve slavery and white supremacy, is often carried and displayed by today's white supremacists.

"The protesters were comparing her action to fascist dictators," Gutfeld said. "It wasn't that there were Nazis there. It was that they were unfairly — they were unfairly comparing her to Hitler, which is wrong."

Whitmer condemned the protesters, many of whom didn't wear masks or gloves when they gathered in close proximity to others outside the Capitol building and called the protest "political." The governor didn't say the protesters were themselves Nazis, but instead pointed out that some carried signs with swastikas on them.

"It was a definitely a political rally. I've not often seen a Confederate flag at the state capitol — and there were a few of them. There was someone who had signs that had a swastika on it," Whitmer said at a Wednesday news conference. "When people are flying the Confederate flag and untold numbers who gassed up on the way here or grabbed a bite on the way home — we know that this rally endangered people."

She added, "This is how COVID-19 spreads."

Hundreds of protesters descended on the state Capitol on Wednesday for a demonstration, called #OperationGridlock, to protest Whitmer's latest stay-at-home order, which closed parts of big-box stores that sell gardening and home-improvement goods, limited the use of motorboats, closed public golf courses, and curbed interstate travel, barring residents from fleeing the most heavily afflicted parts of the state to elsewhere in Michigan.

The protest was organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition and the Michigan Freedom Fund, which is tied to conservative donors Dick and Betsy DeVos, Trump's secretary of education.

One protester's sign read, "Trump, lock up the Nazi woman from Michigan."

Another read, "Michigander against Gretchen's abuses," spelling out MAGA, the president's "Make America Great Again" slogan.

The governor argued that the protesters, who created a traffic jam with their cars and trucks, blocked an ambulance from getting to a hospital.

Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Democrat, said she understood why Michiganders feel frustrated by the order but argued, "bringing hate and fear into a time that is already full of fear and anxiety is just unacceptable."

"What happened yesterday was inexcusable," Dingell told MSNBC on Thursday. "People did not have masks. They didn't have gloves. They did not distance themselves. They had Confederate flags, swastikas. They blocked an ambulance trying to get to a hospital."

—John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) April 17, 2020

—John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) April 18, 2020

Whitmer's office has also accused the conservative groups behind the protest of politicizing a public health crisis.

"It's highly inappropriate for a group that's primarily funded by a member of the president's cabinet to be launching a partisan political attack during the worst public health crisis in a century," Chelsea Lewis, Whitmer's deputy press secretary, told Insider in a statement on Wednesday. "We should all be on the same team fighting the same enemy, and that's COVID-19."

On Thursday, Trump told reporters that the protesters were "listening" to him, despite their defiance of his national stay home guidelines.

"They seem to be protesters that like me and respect this opinion, and my opinion is the same as just about all of the governors," Trump said.

On Friday, less than 24 hours after telling Americans that the decision to ease coronavirus-related restrictions was up to governors, President Donald Trump tweeted a call to "LIBERATE" Michigan, Minnesota, and Virginia — all of which have seen recent protests.

Grace Panetta, Kayla Epstein, and Rachel Premack contributed to this report.

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