Trump appears to back US anti-coronavirus lockdown protests in series of ‘liberate’ state tweets

TRUMP has sparked a new controversy with today’s tweeted calls to ‘liberate’ US states, which more than one critic of the US president are interpreting as an encouragement for anti-lockdown protests.

The President’s ‘Liberate Minnesota,’ ‘Liberate Michigan’ and ‘Liberate Virginia’ tweets, plus call to his supporters to ‘save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!,’ are being described as attacks on the Democrat-run states, which have all seen demonstrators complaining the stay at home orders are harming citizens.

There have also been protests demanding a rollback of the restrictions in Ohio, North Carolina, Utah, Virginia and Kentucky and more are planned elsewhere in the US.

Trump’s tweets come less than 24 hours after he announced details of guidance on how states would be able to reopen their economies.

The US has the highest number of Covid-19 cases and related deaths in the world.

Today Friday the John Hopkins University put the total number of infections across the country at more than 675,000 and the death toll at 33,288.