by Chris White
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said she is following through on a threat to keep President Donald Trump out of her state after he did not wear a face mask for part of a tour at a Michigan car plant.
The president is no longer welcome in Michigan, Nessel told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Thursday after saying earlier in the day on CNN that Trump would be asked “not to return” if he did not follow the state’s guidelines. Not following the guidelines on social distancing and mask wearing cannot be tolerated, she added.
“This morning, you said right here on CNN that if President Trump doesn’t wear a mask, he’ll be asked not to return to any undisclosed facilities in your state. Is the president no longer welcome in Michigan?” Blitzer asked.
Nessel responded: “Speaking on behalf of my department and my office, that’s right — that’s exactly right.”
“Today’s events were extremely disappointing and yet totally predictable,” Nessel said, referring to the president’s decision not to wear a mask in public while touring a Ford plant Thursday in Michigan. “The president is like a petulant child who refuses to follow the rules. This is no joke.”
Nessel added: “He’s conveying the worst possible message to people who cannot afford to be on the receiving end of terrible misinformation.”
Nessel, a Democrat, said earlier on Thursday during a CNN interview that people who don’t comply with the masking laws could be held legally accountable before acknowledging that Trump “doesn’t have the same level of legal accountability as everybody else.”
One of Ford’s executives explained that the president wore a mask during a private viewing of one of the automaker’s new models.
“Bill Ford encouraged President Trump to wear a mask when he arrived. He wore a mask during a private viewing of three Ford GTs from over the years,” the company wrote in a statement Thursday. “The President later removed the mask for the remainder of the visit.”
More than 5,000 people have died in Michigan after contracting coronavirus.
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Chris White is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Dana Nessel” by Dana Nessel.
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