Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer chided her husband for using her name when asking to get his boat in the water ahead of Memorial Day weekend.
The Democrat responded to the ensuing controversy by saying her husband, Dr. Marc Mallory, was simply making a bad joke.
“My husband made a failed attempt at humor last week when checking in with a small business that helps with our boat and dock up north,” Whitmer said during a press conference Tuesday. “Knowing it wouldn’t make a difference, he jokingly asked if being married to me might move him up in the queue. Obviously, with the motorized boating prohibition in our early days of COVID-19, he thought it might get a laugh. It didn’t.”
Mallory asked a boat contractor if his status as “First Gentleman” could help get his boat placed in the water in northern Michigan before Memorial Day, which critics viewed as being particularly insensitive given the coronavirus situation.
The state loosened lockdown restrictions in northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula, but Whitmer warned people to “think long and hard before you take a trip” to the area for the long weekend as the virus remains a contagious threat.
Republicans in the state criticized Mallory’s request, which came to light in Facebook posts from NorthShore Dock and its owner Tad Dowker, as an example of the family using a political office to get special favors.
“He regrets it,” Whitmer said. “I wish it wouldn’t have happened. That’s really all we have to say about it.”
