LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer issued a statement Tuesday praising a DeVos family company for donations of personal protection equipment in the fight against coronavirus, one day after slamming Betsy DeVos, a member of the Republican administration of President Donald Trump.
“Amway has really stepped up to help keep Kent County families and health care workers safe during this time,” Whitmer said in a news release. “I’m eager to work with them and every other business that wants to contribute their time and machinery to helping us fight this virus.”
On Monday, Whitmer criticized Betsy DeVos, who is Trump’s Education secretary, over the involvement of a nonprofit foundation backed by the DeVos family, the Michigan Freedom Fund, in a demonstration planned at the Capitol on Wednesday to protest the governor’s stay-at-home order.
The car-based protest, intended to tie up traffic and dubbed “Operation Gridlock,” is organized by a different group, the Michigan Conservative Coalition, but the Michigan Freedom Fund has helped publicize it and has been listed as a host on Facebook posts.
“This group is funded in large part by the DeVos family,” Whitmer said at a news conference, referencing the Michigan Freedom Fund.
“And I think it’s really inappropriate for a sitting member of the United States president’s Cabinet to be waging political attacks on any governor, but obviously, on me here at home,” Whitmer said.
The family of Dick DeVos, the husband of Betsy DeVos, was a founder of Amway. The family is based in western Michigan, near Grand Rapids and Kent County.
As of April 9, Amway employees had distributed nearly 28,000 units of hand sanitizer to area hospitals, clinics, senior homes and other facilities, Whitmer said in her news release. Amway also has worked to secure disinfectant wipes for area hospitals and hygiene kits for homeless people in Kent County, she said. The business is flying a steady stream of N95 masks to Michigan over the next few weeks, the governor said.
A spokesman for the DeVos family, one of Michigan’s wealthiest and most politically active families in donating to conservative causes, could not immediately be reached.
Greg McNeilly, chairman of the Michigan Freedom Fund and a longtime adviser to the DeVos family, said on Twitter that Whitmer’s statement was “nice,” but “not an apology for false and misleading statements against one of the founding families” of Amway.
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