(WWJ) Governor Gretchen Whitmer is beseeching President Donald Trump to stop the heated rhetoric after he apparently encouraged a fired-up crowd, chanting “lock her up.”
The president’s supporters broke out in the chant during a rally in Muskegon Saturday after Mr. Trump said: “You have to get your Governor to open up your state….and you got to get your schools open.”
“Lock them all up,” Mr. Trump responded to the crowd.
Tweeting out a video clip of this moment, Governor Whitmer wrote: “This is exactly the rhetoric that has put me, my family, and other government officials’ lives in danger while we try to save the lives of our fellow Americans. It needs to stop.”
Whitmer said the President is fanning the flames of domestic terrorism during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“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, 10 days after that was uncovered, the president is at it again, inspiring and inciting domestic terrorism. It is wrong. It’s got to end,” she said.
Related
Related
More than a dozen men are facing terrorism and other charges for participating in an elaborate plot to kidnap Whitmer and to overtake the Michigan government.
Eight men charged are members of the militia group Wolverine Watchmen or are associates of the group, the attorney general's office said. They face a total of 20 state felony charges, including, for some, gang membership. Another six men are facing federal charges of conspiracy to commit kidnapping.
The kidnapping plot allegedly involved stranding Whitmer in a small boat in the middle of Lake Michigan and disabling the engine. An affidavit against one of the suspects said the plan also included “kidnapping politicians and storming the Michigan Capitol Building in Lansing."
During a federal court hearing for five of the men on Friday, an FBI agent testified the plot began before Mr. Trump tweeted out “Liberate Michigan!”
Related
“Meet the Press” host, Chuck Todd, asked Whitmer to what extent the president is to blame:
“I do think the person with the biggest megaphone bears a lot of responsibility here. It’s true. This is a public health crisis,” she told Todd. “It should not be a partisan moment, and yet he has made it that way.”
Speaker of the Michigan House, Lee Chatfield, said the President did not encourage “locking up” Whitmer.
“But others did, and it was wrong,” Chatfield tweeted. “She was literally just targeted. Let’s debate differences. Let’s win elections. But not that.”
Whitmer is also imploring all Michiganders and Americans for a moment of unity.
“We should have acted as if we were in a war, but not a war with one another,” she told Todd. “A war with a virus. And this virus does not care what side of the aisle you vote on…”