VOS 2 – Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office is responding to a report she traveled from Michigan to Florida about a month ago to visit her father in a Michigan Information and Research Service report released Monday.
According to spokeswoman Tiffany Brown, Whitmer’s father is struggling with chronic illness and has a home in Florida. Brown said he is being vaccinated against COVID-19 and that the governor is being tested regularly and has never tested positive for COVID-19.
States defend Whitmer’s trip to Florida, saying she visited a sick father
The office of Governor Gretchen Whitmer was on defense Monday after a report emerged that she had been to Florida a month ago. According to her office, it was to visit her elderly father, who has a chronic illness.
Brown said the trip was not for taxpayers and that she was not long gone.
“The governor did not go into the spring break, and she left the state in more than a month,” Brown said in a statement. In the past six months, she has left the state three times, once for the inauguration, once to help her elderly father who has a chronic illness, and once with National Guard troops in Michigan.
“All trips were very short, two days or less, followed public health guidelines closely and were carried out when Michigan’s daily positivity rate was in the low single digits. Due to ongoing safety issues, we will not comment further on the personal schedule of not the governor. “
Republicans from Michigan blew up the governor during the pandemic.
“Gretchen Whitmer’s blatant revelation of hypocrisy is an insult to every Michigander affected by her lockout orders and travel warnings,” said Ted Goodman, communications director of the Michigan Republican Party. “Whitmer and her top staff not only went on vacation in Florida, but they tried to keep it a secret because it’s rules for Whitmer for you, but not for me.”
Goodman referred to some of Whitmer’s leading staff members who recently traveled outside the state on vacation to Florida and Alabama, including Elizabeth Hertel, the director of Health and Human Services.
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Whitmer mocked reports of her staff members as partisan attacks.
“I’m not going to be distracted by biased hits in my team,” she said last week. ‘What directors do on their personal time is therefore their business, as long as they are safe. That’s what we all need to do in the state. ‘