The Republican candidate for Michigan governor, Tudor Dixon, made fun of Democratic opponent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer twice Friday, turning the 2020 kidnapping plot against Whitmer into a punchline.
During a pro-Dixon super PAC event in Troy, Michigan, hosted by former President Donald Trump’s former adviser Kellyanne Conway, Dixon claimed that despite the governor’s fear of being kidnapped, she took “business” hostage. The joke came after the FBI broke up a real plot to kidnap Whitmer at her summer home in 2020.
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“The sad thing is Gretchen will tie your hands, put a gun to your head, and ask if you’re ready to talk,” the Republican hopeful said, according to a video shared on social media. “For someone so worried about being kidnapped, Gretchen Whitmer sure is good at taking business hostage and holding it for ransom.”
Dixon made another remark later Friday at a second event, claiming that the governor looked like she would “rather be kidnapped by the FBI” than be with President Joe Biden at a Detroit auto show last week.
The gubernatorial hopeful was accompanied by Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., at the second event. The younger Trump also made a joke about the kidnapping plot.
“Show of hands — how many feds in the crowd? I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t some sort of, you know, federal kidnapping plot,” Trump Jr. said. “You know, Gretchen Whitmer knew about it months in advance. But you know what, if we can get good PR from it, we can pretend like it’s real. You know, the FBI can try to entrap a couple of meth heads somewhere and run with that narrative now.”
Trump Jr.’s joke referred to the FBI sting that resulted in the arrests. Two FBI agents infiltrated the group and ultimately charged six men in the plot. Two of the men were convicted of conspiring to kidnap Whitmer and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction by a federal jury last month. They now face a maximum sentence of life in prison.
“Threats of violence and dangerous rhetoric undermine our democracy and discourage good people on both sides of the aisle at every level from entering public service,” Whitmer’s campaign spokeswoman, Maeve Coyle, told CNN. “Threats of violence, whether to Gov. Whitmer or to candidates and elected officials on the other side of the aisle, are no laughing matter, and the fact that Tudor Dixon thinks it’s a joke shows that she is absolutely unfit to serve in public office.”
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Dixon won the Republican primary last month after receiving endorsements from Trump and the family of former Trump Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. She will face Whitmer in the November midterm elections and is currently trailing the governor in polls.
