Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) fired back at President Trump’s threat to withhold federal funding from the swing state during an interview on CBS Thursday morning.
On Wednesday morning, Trump threatened to withhold funding from Michigan in a tweet, which erroneously accused its secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, of sending absentee ballots to registered voters. Trump would later clarify in another tweet that Michigan voters were being sent mail-in voting applications instead, before appearing to back away from his earlier funding threat while speaking to reporters Wednesday afternoon.
After telling CBS’ Gayle King that she urged Trump during a phone call on Wednesday to focus on the “true enemy” of both the novel coronavirus and the catastrophic flooding caused by two collapsed dams in her state, Whitmer called the President’s threat to withhold funding from Michigan amid the COVID-19 pandemic “ridiculous.”
“We are at a point where we think it’s safe to start re-engaging sectors of our economy, but then this flood hits and we’ve got to evacuate tens of thousands of people who are worried and scared, on top of this global pandemic,” Whitmer said. “And to have this kind of distraction is just ridiculous to be honest.”
Whitmer added that Trump’s threat to withhold funding from her state that is “hurting as bad as we are right now” is “scary” and “unacceptable.”
In response to Trump’s visit to the Ford plant outside of Detroit later Thursday, Whitmer said that she has no plans to meet with the President then, but hopes that he can put aside the “petty political stuff that he had going with the secretary of state.”
Watch Whitmer’s remarks below:
