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Is the Lockdown Now About 'Politics, Power, and the 2020 Election'? Why Sen. Jim DeMint Says It's Time to Reopen

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In a recent op-ed column in USA Today, former South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint calls for caution but says America needs to reopen the economy immediately.

DeMint, the current chairman of the Conservative Partnership Institute, wrote: "The elite left and media mob — who are still getting paid to work from home — are outraged. But their hysteria has nothing to do with public health. It's about politics, power, and the 2020 election."

During an interview on CBN News's "Faith Nation" program on Tuesday, DeMint said he does not mean that every state and every business needs to open right now. 

"I think we've got some really smart governors. South Carolina is doing it well. Certainly, Governor DeSantis in Florida is going county by county looking at infection rates," the former senator said. "But let's go back to the beginning of this lockdown and remember that they weren't trying to keep us from getting this virus, they were trying to slow the infection rate so it wouldn't overwhelm our hospitals and healthcare system."

"So we've got governors in most of the states around the country who can move back to regular life in a cautious way and just keep an eye on the infection rate," DeMint explained. "If the infection rate comes back, we need to make sure we have the healthcare facilities and experts to take care of us. But this idea that we hear from some blue state governors that we got to keep our economy closed down, I'm afraid that had nothing to do with healthcare. It has everything to do with politics and the 2020 elections." 

DeMint noted the American economy is on the verge of collapse and if another wave of the coronavirus comes back in the fall, we can't shut everything down again. 

"The Federal Reserve now is printing money. And with the Congress spending and borrowing more money than we ever have in history, and we have a higher unemployment rate than we've had in decades, so we've got to get back to work," he said. "We've got to do it cautiously. But this idea of keeping the economy shutdown is only so that the economy will be back in November. The thing that worries me the most, is how many people in the political realm are taking advantage of this in ways that have nothing to do with healthcare."

New data from Stanford University reveals since Georgia has reopened sections of its economy, the risk of exposure has risen about 40 percent. CBN News asked DeMint if he was concerned about a rise in coronavirus cases as the US economy reopens.

"Notice they say the risk of exposure. We don't have data that suggests that more people are being infected or getting sick," The former senator responded. "We're learning more about this virus. Most people who get it, don't even know they have it or have very mild symptoms. It's only a very narrow section of the population that's at risk. It's folks who are generally older with pre-existing conditions of some kind that are complicated by the coronavirus."

"So working-age people, who are healthy have almost no risk from this," he continued. "So I think what we need now more than anything else is just good data on who is at risk, what are the real symptoms of folks who get it but are not hospitalized. I think what we can do is reduce the fear significantly that most people can go out and go back to their lives at very little risk. But some people who have health conditions and are older, need to be very careful. And so we can do that without keeping things locked down. Because I don't see any evidence that the lockdown is producing better health results."

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About The Author

Steve Warren is a senior multimedia producer for CBN News. Warren has worked in the news departments of television stations and cable networks across the country. In addition, he also worked as a producer-director in television production and on-air promotion. A Civil War historian, he authored the book The Second Battle of Cabin Creek: Brilliant Victory. It was the companion book to the television documentary titled Last Raid at Cabin Creek currently streaming on Amazon Prime. He holds an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma and a B.A. in Communication from the University of