Vehicles sit in gridlock during a protest in Lansing, Mich., April 15, 2020. Flag-waving, honking protesters drove past the Michigan Capitol Wednesday to show their displeasure with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s orders to keep people at home and businesses locked during the new coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

CNN “Situation Room” anchor Wolf Blitzer and the network’s chief White House showman correspondent Jim Acosta both had very serious and concerned looks on their faces as they talked Friday about people across the country who were protesting against governors and their restrictive stay at home orders that have had the effect of shutting down their respective states.

As a grim-faced Acosta looked on, a worried-looking Blizter concern-trolled about how there “doesn’t appear to be any social distancing or other safety measures at these protests against the stay at home orders we’re seeing at various places around the country. But the president is actually encouraging them.”

Acosta, in his best Serious Reporter™ voice, acknowledged Blitzer’s set-up, suggesting that “President Trump appears to be stoking unrest in states around the U.S. where conservative protesters are demonstrating against social distancing measures.”

As a video clip from the recent Michigan protest played, Acosta said that “Mr. Trump was stirring up his supporters, who have organized Tea Party-like protests to lash out against social distancing measures.”

Because CNN can’t go five minutes without mentioning Fox News, Acosta reported that “just minutes after a Fox News report on the demonstrations, the president began tweeting: ‘Liberate Minnesota! Liberate Michigan! Liberate Virginia!’, states with Democratic governors, echoing his show of sympathy for the protesters less than 24 hours earlier.”

Acosta of course left out the fact that the reason you don’t see widespread protests in states with Republican governors is because the stay at home orders for most of them are either not as strict, or governors in those states are already talking about how they are ready to begin the process of opening their states back up.

He also “reported” on how Trump was allegedly “passing the buck” on the “drying up” Paycheck Protection Program, and then played the “both sides” game without noting the fact that it’s Democrats who are holding up progress.

Later, Acosta fretted about how “it sounds like the president wants to start his own resistance movement.”

You can watch video clips from their discussion below, via MRC-TV:

Isn’t it fascinating how obsessed both Acosta and Blitzer appear to be with how “social distancing or other safety measures” have not been observed at these protests? You’d think if they were truly concerned about people not following CDC guidelines that they would call out CNN colleague Chris Cuomo on air for not abiding by CDC guidelines when he broke his Wuhan coronavirus quarantine on Easter Sunday to spend time outside his home with family members.

But I digress.

The Hill’s media reporter Joe Concha made an on-point observation a couple of days ago about how easy it was for people who are paid to be on television to lecture jobless Americans against easing the economy back open:

Just an observational note: Those sitting at studios in multimillion homes or apartments lecturing on TV that it’s a reckless to reopen parts of the economy are more than gainfully employed, well stocked and aren’t feeling the pain/helplessness many Americans w/o jobs/income are.

— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) April 16, 2020

On the issue of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak and the millions of Americans who now find themselves out of work and struggling to feed their families and to make ends meet, truer words have never been spoken.

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