Judge Andrew Napolitano explained why many governors may likely resist pressure to implement new lockdowns even as coronavirus cases spike in some states.
Appearing on Thursday’s “The Daily Briefing” to discuss what Fox News anchor Dana Perino described as governors “rejecting calls for new lockdowns even as some states are seeing a spike in new coronavirus cases,” the Fox News legal analyst first took issue with the word “lockdown” itself.
“First of all, I hate the word lockdown, as you know,” he said. “Lockdown refers to locking prisoners in their cells when there is a prison disturbance and it is offensive in a free society in my view for the government itself to refer to the governors’ orders as enforcing lockdown.”
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Napolitano insisted that “none” of the orders were “legislatively enacted, but were all from governors” and thus “lacked the force of law behind them.”
Perino brought up the fact that Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was opposed to another lockdown because of the effects it would have on the economy, then asked Napolitano what “would happen” if more lockdowns were imposed.
“I don’t think there will be very much voluntary compliance,” the judge responded. “If somebody is worried about getting sick, they can stay home and if they stay home long enough and they social distance with people in their homes which is difficult to do, they are not going to get sick. But in terms of people willing to take chances, willing to open up a business, willing to receive customers, willing to go to a restaurant I think you’re going to find, as Steven Mnuchin said, the overwhelming majority of Americans willing to take chances.”
“In fact, I think that most governors don’t want to be embarrassed,” he explained. “They don’t want to see an Executive Order flaunted even by the police and they probably will just issue these as guidelines rather than as they did last time claiming that they were law even though they’re not.” (RELATED: Alex Berenson Discusses Best-Selling Book, Tells Tucker Why Lockdowns Did ‘Not Seem To Make Much Difference At All’)
Napolitano added that the United States is a “free society” where the government was never authorized to “keep us safe from all sickness” and “to keep us locked down in the face of a pandemic.”
“They just did it anyway,” he concluded.