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A conservative economist and longtime advisor to the president, Stephen Moore has compared the reopening of the American economy to protesters calling for an end of COVID-19 shutdowns to the civil rights icon Rosa Parks. He is also a member of Donald Trump’s task force. Moore made the comparison to 3 different news outlets as small-scale protests spread across the country. He said, “I think there’s a boiling point that has been reached and exceeded”. Moore has been outspoken in his desire to relax stay-at-home orders. He informed the Washington Post and said, “I call these people the modern-day Rosa Parks. They are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties”.

Moore made similar remarks to the New York Times and CBS News. Protests calling for an end to stay-at-home orders have broken out in a number of state capitals across the United States during the past week, in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Minnesota, North Carolina and the Utah States led by both Republican and Democratic governors. Trump had given his tacit support to the protesters. Trump said during a White House briefing, he said, “When you look at what they’ve been through when you look at all of the death and all of the problems and all of the sickness when you look at what’s happened, I just think the American people have been incredible”.

President Trump also said, “They seem to be protesters that like me and respect this opinion, and my opinion is just the same as about all of the governors. They all wanna open, nobody wants to stay shut, but they wanna open safely”. Moore wrote a book called ‘Trumponomics’ on the economic policies of the president and was considered to sit on the board of the Federal Reserve in the Trump administration. He has come under fire in the past for making controversial comments about race. Moore said in the 2016 event just after Trump’s election. He said, “There’s that great cartoon going along, that The New York Times headline: ‘First thing Donald Trump does as President is kicking a black family out of public housing’. And it has Obama leaving the White House. I mean, I just love that one”.