LANSING, Mich. – The Michigan Republican Party leader referred to Governor Gretchen Whitmer and two other Democratic women elected as “witches” that the Republican Party wants to “soften” to “burn at the stake” in the 2022 election.
He also joked about murder when asked how to remove two Republican congressmen, Deputies Fred Upton and Peter Meijer, who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump.
Ron Weiser’s statements on Thursday during a local Republican meeting, which are on video, were first reported on Friday by The Detroit News.
Weiser, who is also an elected member of the University of Michigan Board of Regents, has said several times that the party is focused on defeating “three witches” – a misogynist reference to Whitmer, state attorney general Dana Nessel and secretary of state Jocelyn Benson, who are running for re-election in 2022.
“Our job now is to soften these three witches and make sure that when we have good candidates to run against them, they are ready to be burned at the stake,” he said. “Perhaps the press has heard that too.”
Whitmer noted that she had been the target of an alleged kidnapping plan by anti-government extremists last year over the state’s pandemic blockade.
“Given the dramatic increase in death threats against elected officials in Michigan during the Trump administration, this type of rhetoric is destructive and absolutely dangerous,” said Whitmer. “It’s time for people of goodwill on both sides of the corridor to reduce the pressure and reject that kind of divisive rhetoric.”
Some in the crowd seemed to demand that the party cut back on support for Upton and Meijer, who were among the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump because of the deadly uproar on the United States Capitol. Someone asked Weiser about “witches in our own group”.
He said: “Madam, besides the murder, I have no other choice but to vote. OK? You have to go out and support your opponents. You have to do whatever it takes to get votes in those areas. That’s how you beat people. “
On Friday, Weiser tweeted that his comments were “clearly being taken out of context” and added that “anyone who knows me understands that I would never advocate violence”.
Weiser spokesman Ted Goodman said that Weiser made it clear that voters must determine Republican Party nominees through the primary process. Weiser, a major Republican donor, personally gave money to Upton, a former congressman, and Meijer – now a first-year representative – in 2020.
Goodman did not respond to Weiser’s comment about the “witches”.
The Michigan Democratic Party and two Democratic members of the university council said Weiser, a major donor to the school, should resign. The university declined to comment.
“Secretary Benson and her colleagues experienced firsthand how this rhetoric is later used as a justification for very real threats made against government officials, election officials and democracy itself,” said Benson spokeswoman Tracy Wimmer. “Any leader who does not vehemently denounce this type of behavior and attitude is complicit in his silence.”
Republican Party co-chairman Meshawn Maddock tweeted that calling someone a witch is not misogynistic, accusing the media of seeing misogyny “where it doesn’t exist”.
Nessel seemed to take the witches’ comment calmly, tweeting an altered photo that depicted her, Whitmer and Benson wearing witch hats. She wrote: “Witches who magically slow the spread of Covid, increase electoral participation and hold sexual predators accountable without any help from the legislature? Sign me up for this coven. Do it better, Michigan GOP. “