Fred Upton Sunday on "Meet The Press"
Michigan Republican Congressman Fred Upon, who has opted not to run for a 15th term this year, says violent threats against him and other politicians make it tougher to attract good candidates to run.
"Death threats, they never were like we had this last year, but it was pretty crazy," he said Sunday on "Meet the Press" (video below), noting that he even got threats over backing a Republican bill over infrastructure. He also was one of 10 Republican House members voting for Donald Trump's impeachment last year.
"It's gonna be a detriment getting good people to run, it really will be. ... I got a school board member, lives on my street, I think he got death threats just over the mask mandate."
He said the threats are all the worse when "they threaten not only you -- and I'd like to think I'm pretty fast -- but when they threaten your spouse or your kids or whatever, that's what really makes it frightening."
Upton, from St. Joseph in the western edge of the state, is stepping down after more than 35 years in office. Because he voted to impeach, the ex-president endorsed a Republican challenger.
That didn't bother him, he tells NBC's Chuck Todd, adding that he would have relished a tough campaign. But after his district was redrawn, he decided to call it quits.
