Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer Says Trump Is Inciting “Domestic Terrorism”

Screenshot "State of the Union"/CNN

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Less than two weeks after the FBI charged six men with plotting to kidnap and potentially assassinate Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a frenzied crowd at a Trump rally chanted “Lock her up!” on Saturday. President Donald Trump responded to his supporters in Muskegon, Michigan, by saying, “Lock ’em all up.” 

In a Sunday appearance on Meet the Press, Whitmer said it was “incredibly disturbing that the president of the United States—10 days after a plot to kidnap, put me on trial, and execute me, 10 days after that was uncovered—the president is at it again, and inspiring, and incentivizing, and inciting this kind of domestic terrorism.”

“It is wrong. It’s got to end,” the governor continued. “It’s dangerous not just for me and my family, but for public servants everywhere.”

Whitmer made a similar call on Twitter on Saturday.

As Mother Jones has reported, the FBI charged six men earlier this month with conspiring to kidnap Whitmer, while the state of Michigan charged seven others with “providing support for terrorist acts.” The men charged had a history of posting far-right memes on social media that glorified violence. 

The plot to kidnap Whitmer was highly specific. As Vox wrote based on an affidavit from an FBI special agent: 

Over the summer, the men trained in tactics and weaponry at the home of one of the militia group’s members. They discussed storming the Michigan Capitol but soon concluded that Whitmer would be more vulnerable at either her vacation home or the governor’s official summer residence. “It’s a perfect fuckin’ setup. Out of everywhere that she resides, this is the only one that’s probably actually feasible,” one plotter said in a recorded conversation.

Several of the men attempted to buy explosives that they planned to use to distract the police during the kidnapping, according to the affidavit. The person they tried to purchase them from turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.

On Sunday, Lara Trump defended her father-in-law on CNN. “He wasn’t doing anything, I don’t think, to provoke people to threaten this woman at all,” she said. “He was having fun at a Trump rally.”

Whitmer, though, has paid the price for this “fun,” as a favorite target of the president’s for months. With just two weeks before Election Day, President Trump consistently trails former Vice President Joe Biden in the crucial swing state. 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate