During an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer accused Donald Trump of inciting “domestic terrorism,” The Hill reported. The comments come just one day after Trump encouraged chants of “lock her up” at a rally in Muskegon, Michigan, on Saturday.
“It’s incredibly disturbing that the president of the United States, 10 days after a plot to kidnap, put me on trial, and execute me … is at it again … inciting this kind of domestic terrorism,” she said.
“It is dangerous, not just for me and my family, but for public servants everywhere who are doing their jobs and trying to protect their fellow Americans. People of good will on both sides of the aisle need to step up and call this out and bring the heat down.”
The comments come in the wake of an extremist-led plot to kidnap the governor that was thwarted by the FBI before it came to fruition. The kidnapping plot was allegedly partly born from opposition to Whitmer’s coronavirus lockdown orders.
Trump has taken aim at such lockdowns and claimed that these restrictions would increase under an administration headed by Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
During her NBC appearance, Whitmer noted that Michigan has not been under stay-at-home orders for months. According to the 49-year-old politician, Trump’s recent attacks are part of a broader attempt to fuel violence and unrest to distract from his administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Whitmer argued that people tired of wearing masks and submitting to lockdowns should elect Biden for a more effective pandemic leadership. She pointed to Trump’s response to the virus and called it “the worst in the globe,” noting that almost 220,000 Americans have died from the disease, to date.
As The Inquisitr reported, Trump’s campaign took to Twitter on Wednesday to accuse Whitmer of encouraging people to attempt to assassinate him. In his tweet, Trump’s campaign delved into conspiracy and noted that her TV appearance displayed a sign that featured the numerals 86 and 45. The account claimed that 86 is sometimes used as shorthand for killing someone and suggested the message is an encouragement of assassination against the 45th president of the United States.
The claim was panned by many prominent members of the press and political operatives, who suggested the theory was absurd. Democratic strategist Max Burns noted that the campaign has previously accused Democrats of reading too far into Trump supporters’ use of “1488,” which the Anti-Defamation League defined as a “powerful symbol” for neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
