He never said he went to "protect his family". That would have been shooting himself in the foot and pretty selfish of an elected official (kind of like Dick Levine taking his mom out of a PA nursing home). he said his kids had a school break and asked to vacation with friends, so he took them down. Could be BS, and still a stupid response, but not as stupid as the protection angle.

Moral grandstanding is a substitute for moral principles.

I noticed as a child that the people who wailed the loudest about the poor and supposed oppressed where the most godawful human beings.