michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” [MUSIC] Today, across the U.S. protests are erupting against orders to remain at home and to restrict people’s movements. Jim Rutenberg on who is behind those protests, and what it is they stand to gain from them. It’s Wednesday, April 22. Jim, tell us about these protests.

jim rutenberg

Well, it starts a week ago, Monday, April 13, kind of out of the blue seemingly.

archived recording (protestors) Reopen! Ohio! Reopen! Ohio! Reopen! Ohio

jim rutenberg

Here is a group of protesters show up in Columbus, Ohio.

archived recording (protestor) We are full-grown adults. We know how to protect those that are around us. Mr. DeWine, open us back up.

jim rutenberg

And demand that Governor DeWine, a Republican governor who’s imposed very strict stay-at-home restrictions — they’re demanding, reopen the state, reopen the economy. Let’s get back to work. Then —

archived recording [HONKING AND SHOUTING]

jim rutenberg

— the next day, there’s another rally, this time with the same demands in North Carolina, in Raleigh.

archived recording (speaker) Folks, this is your third and final opportunity to leave the parking lot. If you don’t disperse immediately, you will be subject to arrest. You will be arrested and processed into Wake County jail if you don’t leave the property immediately.

jim rutenberg

And this time, the protest results in an arrest. Then, the next day —

archived recording (protestor) Facts over fear! Open up Michigan!

jim rutenberg

— you have a very big protest, the biggest protest in Michigan. And this one is the biggest one we’d seen, called Operation Gridlock. It’s a dreary day in Lansing, and all around the state capital as far as the eye can see are lines of cars —

archived recording [CARS HONKING]

jim rutenberg

— honking. Their passengers and their drivers chanting, freedom.

archived recording (protestor) Freedom is essential. Fear is a choice.

jim rutenberg

Their windows open, signs saying: End the lockdown. Freedom over tyranny. Even pharaoh freed the slaves during a plague.

archived recording (protestor 1) My husband is on unemployment for the first time in our life, and it’s unwillingly that we’re taking unemployment. We want to go back to work. archived recording (protestor 2) It’s time for our state to be opened up. We’re tired of not being able to buy the things that we need. archived recording (protestor 1) The only stores open are Walmart? That’s ridiculous. That’s why we’re here.

jim rutenberg

And all of it is directed at Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who has put in some of the toughest stay-at-home restrictions in the whole entire country.

archived recording (protestor) Did I hear an American say, recall Whitmer? archived recording (protestors) Recall Whitmer!

jim rutenberg

And she has banned going to garden shops. So one of the protesters says to a TV reporter —

archived recording (protestor) You can’t buy paint. You can’t buy lawn fertilizer or grass seed or whatever. I mean, come on. All statewide, really?

jim rutenberg

Complaints about people can’t go to their second homes.

archived recording (protestor) If you have a second home in the state, you can’t visit that second home. But if somebody lives out-of-state, they can come into a vacation home.

jim rutenberg

A cardinal sin by the governor to some people as she says, no water skiing, no use of jet skis. You know, this is a lake state — a Great Lake state. So there’s an incredible pent-up anger and it’s spilling out on these streets. It was the biggest protest to date, and the anger was palpable and seemed very sincere.

archived recording [CARS HONKING]

michael barbaro

And Jim, was there a sense in place like Michigan that these grievances are legitimate? Some of these restrictions, for example, on jet skis, motorboats, home garden stores, felt unusual?

jim rutenberg

Absolutely. And you know, well, on the one hand, though, let’s keep one thing in mind. Michigan has been hit particularly hard. I mean, they have a tremendous public health burden, and the governor is trying to meet that. On the other hand, she has imposed some of the toughest restrictions in the country, and these are restrictions to go at the very heart of American freedom. You can’t go to your own home. You can’t leave your one home for another home. People from two different households can’t commingle. I mean, these go against the kind of fundamental ideas about private property rights, so there is very understandable anger welling up over some of these, no matter what has motivated these restrictions.

archived recording (tucker carlson) When the coronavirus hit Michigan in force last month, Wittmer had no clue what to do. So she responded with a mixture of comical ineptitude and a weird kind of arbitrary fascism.

jim rutenberg

As these protests roll out, they’re becoming a cause célèbre in conservative media.

archived recording (rush limbaugh) By the way, there are uprisings all over this country against governors and their restrictions.

jim rutenberg

They’re getting tons of play — Rush Limbaugh, all the talk radio hosts.

archived recording (alex jones) Let’s stay in our houses, be bubble people. We’ve got to be tracked in real time as if we’re wearing a state police outfit.

jim rutenberg

Alex Jones, the conspiracy monger online.

archived recording (dana perino) The American spirit is too strong, and Americans are not going to take it. And what happened in Lansing today, god bless them, it’s going to happen all over the country.

jim rutenberg

But you have ample coverage on Fox News’s regular news programming as well. And in fact, it’s on Friday.

archived recording In Minnesota, the demonstrators didn’t even wait for their own planned protest for today.

jim rutenberg

During a Fox News segment about the protests, this one in Minnesota —

archived recording — events St. Paul yesterday —

jim rutenberg

We started to see some tweets from the President of the United States. Liberate Minnesot. Liberate Michigan, Liberate Virginia, all in capital letters.

michael barbaro

So this is the president openly encouraging these protests?

jim rutenberg

He’s taken himself right to the front of the line.

michael barbaro

Right. It’s around this point that I started to look at this and think, this has the makings of a movement.

jim rutenberg

Precisely. It’s got everything that we’ve come to see in any modern political movement. It’s crowds outside of state houses. It’s the same sort of signage. It’s a protest movement that’s come together very, very fast, and getting a lot of tension. And we start wondering, my colleague Ken Vogel and I, what’s behind this movement? They take some organization. They take getting the word out to people and negotiating with the authorities on the street about where the protesters can be, especially in these new conditions. So we start wondering, how is this all coming together? It’s certainly a movement, but all movements have organizational structures. What’s going on here?

michael barbaro

And what did you find?

jim rutenberg

Well, as we often find, it was complicated. [MUSIC] It involved some familiar conservative activist groups playing major roles behind the scenes. Some of the conservative donors who we’ve followed over the years were involved behind the scenes. There were many tentacles from Washington leading into these various state protests, basically driven by people whose main concern probably isn’t solely whether you can go to the store tomorrow and buy some grass seed.

michael barbaro

We’ll be right back. So Jim, as you’re trying to figure out who and what is behind these protests, where did you start?

jim rutenberg

Well, the good news for us was at first we didn’t have to do a ton of digging. It was right there in plain sight in Michigan. It turned out that one of the big groups that helped organize the protest, promote the protest, even speak for the protest is called Michigan Freedom Fund.

michael barbaro

Mm-hmm?

jim rutenberg

And Michigan Freedom Fund has as its chairman a gentleman named Greg McNeilly. It turns out Greg McNeilly is very close to a big, conservative family in Michigan that donates to a lot of conservative causes — the DeVos family.

michael barbaro

Hmm.

jim rutenberg

That family’s activism in Michigan, especially around charter schools, is what led President Trump to hire one of them, Betty DeVos, to be his education secretary. So this is a connection to the White House right there out in the open. Of course, Mr. McNeilly said he was not coordinating with the White House, but the connections were right there in plain sight. And that really intrigued a lot of us.

michael barbaro

OK. So what did you find next?

jim rutenberg

Then, we started looking at some of the Facebook posts for Operation Gridlocks — you know, Facebook posts for the Michigan protests, for the protest in New Mexico, for the main protest. And we noticed that the language for a lot of these promotions for them on Facebook is exactly the same. There’s a line that runs through a couple of them: People always say conservatives never protest because they are too busy working. Well guess what, you’re not working — was the joke. And this repeats across a lot of these Facebook groups. Just, you know, obviously coming from the same place. So we don’t know where that same place is at this point. We just know that there’s something going on here that’s national in scope and involves some coordination. Then, we get the kind of thing that happens sometimes — that you’re very happy when it happens as a reporter — is I got a kind of out of the blue call from a progressive group called True North, and they found —

archived recording (speaker) Hey, if we’re live, I’m going to start talking. How’s that?

jim rutenberg

— a fascinating little clip from YouTube.

archived recording (speaker) We can talk public policy and drink at the same time.

jim rutenberg

A tiny YouTube show — there are 300 views on this thing.

archived recording (speaker) We decided to call up our old friend, Steve Moore, who’s at home. Steve, how are you? archived recording (stephen moore) So did The Gazette take you back? archived recording (speaker) No, no, they never —

jim rutenberg

And it’s Stephen Moore, a long-time conservative activist.

archived recording (stephen moore) My wife says I’m a metrosexual, because I’m — [LAUGHS] because I’m drinking a wine spritzer. archived recording (speaker) Oh my gosh!

jim rutenberg

A one-time potential nominee for President Trump to the Fed board, and a close sort of economic advisor to Trump from the outside.

archived recording (stephen moore) If we don’t open the economy by May 1, we are in really, really deep trouble.

jim rutenberg

And he says —

archived recording (stephen moore) — we saw saw more protests today. I’m working with a group in Wisconsin that wants to do a drive-in.

jim rutenberg

I’m working with a group to organize a protest in Wisconsin.

archived recording (stephen moore) This is great. We have one big donor in Wisconsin. I’m not going to mention his name, and I told him about this. He said, Steve, I promise I will pay the bail and legal fees for anyone who gets arrested.

jim rutenberg

And I’ve even got a donor lined up who’s ready to pay the legal fees of anyone who gets arrested.

archived recording (stephen moore) So this is a great time, gentlemen and ladies, for civil disobedience. We need to be the Rosa Parks, here, and protest against these government injustices.

jim rutenberg

These are the modern day Rosa Parks, fighting for freedom and liberty.

michael barbaro

Wow.

jim rutenberg

Yeah.

archived recording (speaker) Everybody here, let’s raise a toast to Steve Moore. archived recording (stephen moore) Thank you, gentlemen. And ladies. archived recording (interposing voices) speaker Thank you, Steve. archived recording (stephen moore) Go Colorado. Go, go.

jim rutenberg

Now, we noticed something really interesting about the timing of that video. He says this on April 14. Well, that was an important day for Stephen Moore, because he was also named that very same day to a presidential commission about reopening the economy — President Trump’s sort of task force.

michael barbaro

Huh.

jim rutenberg

Yes. And then, we started looking at what Stephen Moore had been up to over the past couple of weeks, and it turned out that he was working with a couple of other groups to pressure the White House to open the economy sooner.

michael barbaro

Mm-hmm.

jim rutenberg

Now, two of those groups were called Freedom Works and ALEC. And those groups have been major players in the old Tea Party movement. The Tea Party movement of course was this overwhelming conservative sort of rebellion that sprung up around the country basically a decade ago to agitate against the bailouts of the financial crisis and their perceived overreach of the Obama administration. Freedom Works had initially been founded with help from the billionaire Koch brothers, so it has big billionaire donors behind it. So lo and behold, the next step is, Ken Vogel, my colleague who’s written a lot about these donors and these issues, finds that Freedom Works has itself been directly involved in helping to organize some of these reopen government protests.

michael barbaro

Huh. So suddenly, these major conservative players turn out to be highly involved in encouraging these protests.

jim rutenberg

Exactly, and groups that had been through this before during the Tea Party and knew what they were doing. And then, finally, it comes to our attention that a big law firm has come to the defense of a protester arrested in Raleigh. This firm is called Michael Best, and wouldn’t you know it, this firm is very closely tied to the White House. It has among its ranks Reince Priebus, the former RNC chief and Trump White House Chief of Staff. It has a lawyer who’s currently helping the Trump Organization fend off requests from Congress for its tax information. And then it has an attorney who’s currently, right now, working as a special counsel to President Trump’s campaign. This firm just couldn’t be more closely connected to the President.

michael barbaro

Mm-hmm.

jim rutenberg

We spoke to a partner there in North Carolina who said there was no coordination here. But again, an uncanny connection to President Trump.

michael barbaro

So what you’re finding, Jim, are wealthy conservative donors, well-established conservative activist groups, and some important figures that are connecting these protests or their promotion straight back to the Trump Administration?

jim rutenberg

Yes.

michael barbaro

And what do you make of that?

jim rutenberg

You know, I guess what we do as reporters is, we only stick to what our reporting shows. So what we don’t have reporting, at least as of right now, showing that somehow this was a top-down, the White House has concocted this plot to create these protests that help the President. What we do have is, people connected to the White House — at least in Mr. Moore’s case, directly working with the White House — are helping these protests along, stoking them, providing them the financial wherewithal where they see they need it. Just these tentacles that kind of go to the President and to these major conservative groups that have long been on the scene trying to push against big government.

michael barbaro

And Jim, what is the interest of these conservative groups and activists in pushing, facilitating, encouraging — whatever word you want to use — these protests? I mean, to put it simply, what’s in it for them?

jim rutenberg

Well, the motivating factors are myriad, right? Part of this is, these groups are supported by donors who want this economy open. They want to see cars on the road. I mean, have you seen the price of oil lately? They want people going into stores and buying products, the products they make. These donors are very much part of the economy in a very big way, so there’s personal interest. There’s philosophical interest. This is a movement born with the belief in personal freedom, and government can’t tell you what to do. But underlying a lot of it in terms of the big donor, big group side, there’s also the fact that this whole crisis is potentially very damaging to President Trump’s approval ratings, and ultimately — and this is the most important ultimate thing here — President Trump’s re-election. All these groups are heavily invested in seeing him win, most of all the White House itself — the President.

michael barbaro

And how does this nascent movement assist in that project of getting President Trump re-elected?

jim rutenberg

You know, at a time when there can be no rally for President Trump, he can’t be in these arenas. This is a form of that. It’s galvanizing people. It’s hitting their emotions and getting them actually, amid a pandemic, out in the streets, in many cases waving his flag.

michael barbaro

Hmm. As much as this may suggest that these protests are not entirely spontaneous, it feels like it’s kind of always the case with protests, right? I mean, behind any large crowd on the National Mall or outside a state capital, it feels like, invariably, are deep pocketed donors and activist groups that specialize in putting people together. I mean, thousands of people don’t just show up on their own, right? So what makes this any different?

jim rutenberg

What makes this one unique in any of our experience is the nature of the protest. It’s happening during a pandemic, and what is being encouraged here — and the organizers are very aware of this and trying to be careful about it — is go out in public around other people at a time when going out in public and being around other people has been deemed a threat to the public health, something that is going to get in the way of stopping the spread of this virus so that we can all get back to normal.

michael barbaro

Mm-hmm. So Jim, that makes me wonder. Why would the president, who’s out there on Twitter saying, liberate Michigan, liberate Virginia, liberate Minnesota, and why would the people around him — why would they want to be associated with these protests if there is a risk, a very real risk that if these protests achieve what they aim to achieve, people could end up getting hurt?

jim rutenberg

Well, they’re pretty open about that question, and they don’t shy away from it, the ones we’ve talked to. And their answer would be, some of this they believe is being overhyped, that some states may be in a better position to open than others and should be opened, and that a flailing, depressed economy is bad for the nation’s health. And at the very bottom of it all is, we’re a free nation and this is a cost-benefit analysis that is going to have to be done at some point. So there are giant ideological questions in this and philosophical questions in this, mixed in with the very real public health implications that, as you’ve pointed out, are pretty serious and pretty severe.

michael barbaro

I’m curious how successful you think these protests have been so far in achieving their stated goal of pressuring these governors to start easing these lockdowns?

jim rutenberg

Well, on the one hand, we’re already starting to see an easing in states like South Carolina and Tennessee and Georgia, where those governors are moving ahead with plans to open back up.

michael barbaro

Mm-hmm.

jim rutenberg

Now, those governors probably were eager to do that anyway and have a political situation in their states where their public is there with them. In Michigan, however, we see Governor Whitmer sticking to her guns. So I think one thing we really have to keep in mind here is, so far this is not the Tea Party. It’s not an overwhelming, huge protest movement that’s going to make every governor buckle. And in polling, we’re still seeing that majorities in this country support these stay at home orders and don’t want to see the government rush too quickly to reopen everything. That said, if we’ve learned anything over the Trump era, it’s that the loud minority can really dictate policy, and that’s why we really have to keep an eye on these protests. They could tell us a lot about what’s going to happen over the coming weeks and months in terms of this country getting back to some semblance of normalcy. And let’s not forget, what we’ve now learned is a lot of very powerful people are invested in seeing these protests continue and grow and ultimately succeed. [MUSIC PLAYING]

michael barbaro

Thank you, Jim.

jim rutenberg

Thank you, Michael.

michael barbaro

On Tuesday, the Attorney General Bill Barr said he would consider taking legal action against governors whose restrictions on their citizens’ movements infringed on their constitutional rights. In a radio interview, Barr said that the Department of Justice would first seek to pressure the governors to roll back such rules, but would not rule out joining citizens’ lawsuits to overturn them. Over the coming days, more protests against stay at home orders are scheduled in Missouri, Pennsylvania, Maine, Virginia and Kansas. We’ll be right back. Here’s what else you need to know today.

archived recording (donald trump) Therefore, in order to protect American workers, I will be issuing a temporary suspension of immigration into the United States.

michael barbaro

On Tuesday night, President Trump announced that he would stop issuing green cards that allow foreigners to move to the United States, closing off the country to tens of thousands of people seeking to join family members or to accept employment.

archived recording (donald trump) It would be wrong and unjust for Americans laid off by the virus to be replaced with new, immigrant labor flown in from abroad. We must first take care of the American worker — take care of the American worker.

michael barbaro

Immigration advocates immediately accused the president of using the crisis to carry out a long-planned assault on the country’s legal immigration system, a claim that Trump denied. And after days of negotiations, the White House and Congress reached a deal on a $484 billion relief package that would replenish an emergency loan fund for small businesses. That fund quickly ran out of money before thousands of companies could even apply.

archived recording (mitch mcconell) At the core of our agreement is $320 billion more for the Paycheck Protection Program, which is already saving millions of small business jobs and helping Americans get paychecks instead of pink slips.

michael barbaro

Under pressure from Democrats, the package also provides money for hospitals and coronavirus testing, and requires that the Trump administration prepare a national strategy for testing.

archived recording (chuck schumer) We don’t have enough tests. That cry rings from one end of America to the other. It’s urban, suburban, rural, north, east, south and west. We don’t have enough tests. Well now, help is on the way, because Democrats stood and fought for it.

michael barbaro