Minnesota's governor and other blue state liberals are calling their latest coronavirus shutdowns temporary restrictions, but they are ultimately permanent closures for small businesses, according to Rep. Jim Hagedorn, R-Minn., on Newsmax TV.
"What Gov. [Tim] Walz has done with his latest round of lockdowns, I don't think is good," Hagedorn, who held off House Speaker Nancy Pelosi-backed Dan Feehan, told Tuesday's "Spicer & Co."
"He says it's a temporary order, but for many of these businesses, like for restaurants and bars, it'll be a permanent closure, and it'll lead to a lot of unintended consequences."
Hagedorn believes "there is about $50 million of CARES Act money in the hands of Gov. Walz."
"He needs to release that immediately, especially if he's going to lockdowns these bars, restaurants, and others," Hagedorn told co-hosts Sean Spicer and Lyndsay Keith. "We have to make sure they get to one side of the coronavirus to the other."
"They were just starting to recover, then the rug is pulled out from under them again. What I think is kind of lost is these blue states governors and mayors they don't focus in these other consequences of their lockdowns."
There are non-COVID-related deaths spiking, he added, including cancer and suicides, he concluded.
Hagedorn also laments, like Gov. Walz withholding pandemic funding, Speaker Pelosi will not permit the Trump administration to unlock what he estimates is $138 billion of funds to address health and economic fallout from the pandemic.
Hagedorn noted the House GOP needs just 23 Democrats to sign on to releasing those funds Pelosi has exercised control over.
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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