Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon compared the conspiracy to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to the Governor’s treatment of businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic in two campaign events Friday.
“The sad thing is that Gretchen will tie your hands, put a gun to your head and ask if you’re ready to talk,” Dixon said during her speech in Troy. “For someone so worried about being kidnapped, Gretchen Whitmer sure is good at taking business hostage and holding it for ransom.”
Maeve Coyle, a spokesperson for Whitmer’s campaign, Whitmer’s campaign responded to the comment by saying threats of violence to any official regardless of party “are no laughing matter.”
“Gov. Whitmer has faced serious threats to her safety and her life, and she is grateful to the law enforcement and prosecutors for their tireless work,” Coyle said in a statement. “The fact that Tudor Dixon thinks it’s a joke shows that she is absolutely unfit to serve in public office.”
Hours later in Muskegon, Dixon said the quip was no joke.
“If you were afraid of that, you should know what it is to have your life ripped away from you,” Dixon said, before quickly clarifying, “that was a joke, what I just said. Just so the media gets it, that’s what a joke is.”
Dixon later told reporters “I think when you’re being attacked every day, you have to have a little levity and we can still have fun.”
Fourteen people were arrested on state and federal charges in connection with a 2020 plot to kidnap Whitmer. Two have been convicted by a jury, two have pleaded guilty and two others were acquitted on federal charges.
Related: Men found guilty of leading plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer
Dixon said, by way of contrast, the press hasn’t provided fair coverage of President Joe Biden’s remarks about her.
“It doesn’t matter that Joe Biden came here and called me all kinds of names and put my life in danger,” Dixon said sarcastically. “That doesn’t matter. They’ll never talk about that.”
It wasn’t immediately clear what those remarks were. Dixon’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for more information.
Dixon appeared in Troy with adviser to former president Donald Trump Kellyanne Conway Friday morning, then later appeared with Conway and Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., in Muskegon. A few hundred attended the outdoors event.
Conway called Dixon a “bona fide badass.” Whitmer’s COVID-19 response, Conway said, meant “you can smoke your grass but you can’t cut your grass,” referring to the fact marijuana dispensaries were able to remain open as essential businesses but home goods stores could not.
Trump followed Dixon in Muskegon and also referenced the plot against Whitmer, calling it a “fake kidnap plot orchestrated by the FBI.” An FBI agent and informant were central to prosecutors’ case, and the perspective mirrors an argument from defense attorneys who claimed federal agents entrapped the alleged conspirators by concocting the plot themselves.
Related: FBI pushed ‘hapless’ client into Gov. Whitmer kidnap plot, attorney says
Whitmer’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic took center stage in Dixon’s campaign in recent days. On Wednesday she met with business owners who resisted public health orders that required businesses to close in early 2020.
Trump offered a freewheeling address to the attendees but ended on message, saying Dixon represented an opportunity for the state to turn the page.
“You have the opportunity to do something special here in Michigan,” Trump said. “I think Tudor can do an incredible job. I think she understands the issues. She gets what’s going on and that’s where (Democrats are) so lost on the other side.”
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