Michigan restaurateur defies state order, stays open: 'You can only be backed into the corner so far'

The Michigan restaurateur who went viral this week for sounding off on the government's handling of the coronavirus pandemic has no intention of backing down, telling "Tucker Carlson Tonight" Thursday that "the suffering of the little people's got to be told."

Dave Morris, owner of D&R's Daily Grind Cafe in Portage, became an unlikely social media star after he interrupted a TV news reporter's live broadcast to express his frustration with state lockdown orders. His comments followed an emergency order from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services that halted all indoor social gatherings for three weeks in an effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in the state.

"This is several months of frustration," Morris told Carlson. "I think I'm speaking for a whole lot, millions and millions of Americans I'm speaking for here, our so-called leaders that are using our tax money to pay themselves while they are instilling policy on us to ruin our businesses and our lives."

D&R's Daily Grind Cafe, which is open for breakfast and lunch from 7 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. seven days a week, closed in the spring and reopened at half-capacity in June, which Morris said worked well for a few months. However, he claimed that when college kids went back to school, "everything exploded."

Neither Morris nor any of his immediate family have contracted COVID-19, he said.

"You know, my business has been going through this for nine months and we haven't had any cases," he told Carlson before adding that the lockdowns have taken a "huge" financial toll on his business and family.

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"This started out as a two-week 'flatten the curve'. They asked us to cooperate with that. It went from that to shutting us right down for months," he explained. "They have destroyed, I don't know, maybe 3,000 businesses in the state are closed right now permanently, and there's more to come."

Morris reopened his restaurant for indoor dining on Tuesday against state orders, and other local restaurants have done the same. Businesses that defy state rules may be subject to liquor license suspensions and citations, according to state officials, but Morris said he is "not worried about that." 

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"You can only be backed into the corner so far, [before] we got to come out fighting here a little bit," he argued. "And I'm really frustrated with the way things are handled, particularly between the state legislators and my governor."

Morris applied for a Payment Protection Program (PPP) loan the first day it was available. The next day, his bank informed him that the funds were depleted. He and his wife have received a total of $2,400 since March.

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"I had some hope and they were talking about a $2 trillion stimulus package to help the American people," he said.

If shuttered businesses were subsidized with government funding, "we could have shut this thing down. People could have gone home and afforded to stay home," Morris explained.

"Instead, that money went in all different directions. It went to campaign donors, special interest groups, maybe a couple museums," he said, "and it didn't get where it was supposed to go. I never got any of it. And the small business owners like me never got any of it. That's our money and I want to know what they did with it."

Fox News' Audrey Conklin contributed to this report.