Home Depot Co-Founder: Media Has Done A ‘Wonderful Job Frightening America’

As the COVID-19 lockdowns continue to destroy the American economy, Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus has credited the media for “frightening America.”

Speaking with Laura Ingraham of Fox News on Monday, Marcus said that America needs to focus on protecting the vulnerable instead of locking everyone down.

“My age bracket is really the problem. If we take care of my age bracket, that is 70 or above, I think that we can end a lot of the problems that are out there,” Marcus said. “People that are 70 or above have to be so careful because you are compromised in many different ways. But we’re only a small portion of the population and we’re closing down everybody, in addition to the schools.”

Marcus went on to cite Florida and Georgia as examples of states taking the correct initiatives going forward by reopening businesses.

“What they did is a perfect example of thinking and understanding that people needed to get out the house, needed to start their businesses again, needed to go to work again,” he said. “But there are bureaucrats all over the country in the blue states that are still closed and god knows when they’ll open. Those people up there, they are still struggling and it is desperation time for many of them.”

Indeed, governors in several blue states are desperate to keep the lockdowns going as long as possible, often using scare tactics to maintain complaince: this is the new normal, no reopening until a vaccine, get used to it, etc. Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom has even begun to express fears about not just a second COVID-19 wave but a third COVID-19 wave.

“If history doesn’t repeat itself, it certainly rhymes. And the realities of previous pandemics around the globe and those we experienced in the United States suggest not just second waves, but potential third waves,” Newsom said. “And so one has to be very, very sober as we move forward to this next round of re-openings, and do so with the modifications that are required of the moment, and,  I think, a humbleness of spirit on all sides of the political aisle that’s also needed at this moment.”

According to Fox News, more than a dozen states have begun to gradually ease lockdown restrictions and reopen the American economy:

Fox News has identified a total of 48 states that have now begun a partial reopening process. These states have said data shows they have “flattened the curve” of infections enough to phase in their economies under new health guidelines and restrictions to protect citizens from the virus that causes COVID-19.

The U.S. has recorded at least 1,491,547 confirmed coronavirus cases and at least 89,666 deaths, according to statistics gathered by Johns Hopkins University.

Chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell warned Sunday that unemployment in the U.S. could peak between 25 and 30 percent before the end of the June as the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic worsens.

President Trump has said that U.S. will reopen with or without a vaccine.