Like a petulant—and very predictable—child, Donald Trump attacked Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel after she described him as a “petulant child” for refusing to wear a mask as he toured a Ford plant in her state, despite both the state and Ford having policies calling for mask wearing. Nessel told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that her office is “going to have to have a very serious conversation with Ford in the event that they permitted the president to be in publicly enclosed places in violation of the order.”
”The Wacky Do Nothing Attorney General of Michigan, Dana Nessel, is viciously threatening Ford Motor Company for the fact that I inspected a Ventilator plant without a mask,” Trump tweeted. “Not their fault, & I did put on a mask. No wonder many auto companies left Michigan, until I came along!” Psst … it doesn’t help to put on a mask if you take it off five minutes later, and also, way to give Nessel exactly the response—and the platform—she was going for.
Ford basically threw up its hands, issuing a statement saying Trump had been “encouraged” to wear a mask; Ford executive chair Bill Ford reportedly shrugged and told reporters “It’s up to him.” Because, as usual, Donald Trump thinks he’s above the law or the rules and no one is willing to challenge him. Except Dana Nessel, apparently.
”He’s conveying the worst possible message to people who cannot afford to be on the receiving end of terrible misinformation,” Nessel said. Of Ford, she said, “They knew exactly what the order was and if they permitted anyone, even the president of the United States to defy that order, I think it has serious health consequences, potentially to their workers.”
During the same visit, Trump also raved about Ford Motor Co. founder Henry Ford’s “good bloodlines,” language that raised a lot of eyebrows because Ford was a massive anti-Semite, a Hitler-thought-he-had-good-stuff-to-say level anti-Semite. Trump also continued to lie about mail-in voting, "joked" that Fords are too expensive, and repeated his lie that he won a “Michigan’s man of the year” award that doesn’t exist.
But the fact that he did all of this while refusing to respect the rules, be a role model, and protect the safety of the people around him is probably the most telling.
