Lawmakers Ramp up Attacks on Coronavirus Lockdowns

are an overreach. Melanie's Anona congressional reporter at Politico, joins us for the fight against lockdowns. Thanks for joining us, Melanie, Hi, Thanks for having me. Well. The country is on its way. We're starting to reopen, but it's kind of a major fight all over the place, especially on Capitol Hill. Republicans are very angry at the rate that this is happening. They want things to open now. Democrats are trying to be a little more cautious with it. They want to

maybe extend some of these stay at home orders. It's kind of all over the place. It's very fluid right now, but the quarantine fatigue is the real People are over People want to start getting out and about, but it's all about how to balance the public health with the needs of the economy. So Melanie tell us a little bit about how this is all playing out well. Frustrations are clearly boiling over in the GOP right now. Many Republicans on Capitol Hills felt like they were open to

these restrictions. Initially they felt like they were being patient, but now they feel like it's time to start opening things up again. They're seeing the impacts of having on the economy and local businesses, so they're really starting to lash out. We've seen them attend rallies to reopen America. We've seen them harp on local officials, harp on Democratic leadership for not bringing Congress back into session right away.

And they're really encouraging these protests that were taking place all around the country in an effort to sort of build pressure on their state and local government to start reopening things. So tell us about some of the GOP members that have spoken up about this. You noted a few in your article. Representative Andy hair Is, he's a

Republican from Maryland. He's also a physician. You know, he was talking about how early models are saying there's gonna be two million people dead at this and we're not getting those numbers. So based off of that, it's time to start reopening things. It hasn't beared out the way of how it was going to happen, so let's start opening things up. So what if some of the other

members said about it. Some of the other conservative members have really seized on the idea that they're worried the stay at home orders are a violation of constitutional liberties and religious radoms. Their point is, right now, you can go to a store and get alcohol or a pack of cigarettes, or a lottery ticket, but you can't go to your place of worship. So they're saying these measures

are going overboard. They want Attorney General William Barr to look into these measures to make sure they're not violating constitutional liberties. But then you have other members like Andy Harris, who is a doctor, who has been saying that the initial productions were a lot higher than what we've seen. They're out. But it's important to note that that two million figure he was citing was in reference to if

we had no social distance being in place. But he has really been aggressive and calling for these lockdowns to end. He has also argued that there's also health risks if we stay at home because there's been an increase in suicide rates and mental health issues and routine health exams or for example, getting pushed to the back burner. But yeah, you're hearing all sorts of different arguments coming from Capital

Hope Republicans about why these measures should be lifted. And one of the interesting things that we're seeing is, you know, you mentioned the protests and how some of these members have even participated in some of the protests. Some are even saying, who knows if this will turn into some type of political movement. Part of this overreach of government again, and as I said, you know, it's a balance of public health and all, but people do feel like their

rights are being infringed upon. On this. It's drawing a lot of comparisons to the Tea Party movement that we saw a decade ago. There's a lot of frustration, especially among conservatives and on the right, what they see is government overreach. There's a lot of concern about whether the government is going too far. And you know, back then, the Tea Party movement is about big government spending, so

in this case it's obviously a little different. But you're seeing a lot of conservative activists really trying to seize on this grassroots energy in this momentum, and they're trying to mobilize the base ahead of the November election. But polls still show that most Americans aren't really comfortable with reopening the states that much yet, at least with Salon's, Jim's movie theaters, things like that. They're still saying, you know, we could either take some time or just not yet.

The polling that we've seen recently is that most of the public right now is still skeptical about reopening. So the Republicans pushing for these lockeddowns to end are in the minority. And that's why you have seen some Republicans, especially those who might be up for re election in the fall, take a more nuanced approach this debate. They're saying, we need to open up, but it needs to be done slowly and safely, and they're being much more careful

about how they approach this issue. But certainly, I would say the majority of the GOP is arguing that it's time. The Attorney General, William Barr, has also said that the Justice Department is honoring the stay at home orders to ensure they don't violate any civil liberties just kind of my understanding. A lot of them are, you know, stay at home obviously, but most states are still allowing their citizens to go out and take walks and things like that.

So what would they be looking for to see of any civil liberties being violated? What would the justice part to be looking at. Some of the issues that I have been raised by conservative is whether restrictions on allowing them to worship, for example, is a violation of their religious freedoms. Something else they've talked about is whether the law enforcement and police officers should be aggressively going after people and jailing them for violating some of these orders.

We've seen numerous reports of local law enforcement going after businesses and people who are violating their rules. So we probably just want to make sure that everything is in line with the constitution, and they're asking William Barr to make sure that that isn't happening. You did mention that the Senate had come back in the session and the House was delaying some of that. Do we know when they're going to come back. The House isn't back yet.

They are waiting to finish their next relief package, so they want something to vote on before they haul all these lawmakers back. We're hearing it could be happening on Friday at the earliest. It could slipped next week. But again, Republicans are some of them are calling to return no matter what. They want to come back into session because the Senate already is back, you're working, and they said they don't want to be seen as sitting on the sideline.

But Democrats argue that if they're going to bring people back, they want to do it safely, and they want to make sure there's a reason that they're calling people back and not just doing it for the sake of doing it. So that's why they're waiting until their next relief package is done be written. Melanie's Anona congressional reporter at Politico. Thank you very much for joining us. Thanks so much for having me. I'm aspar Romeiras and this has been

your daily coronavirus event. Don't forget that. For today's big news stories. You can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday. To follow us and I Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcast