West Michigan Lawmaker Fred Upton Receives Death Threats Over Recent Vote
A West Michigan lawmaker has revealed that he's gotten threats after a recent vote in support of a $1.2 Trillion package to help re-build and update America's aging infrastructure.
Representative Fred Upton was featured on CNN where he played the audio during Anderson Cooper 360, the audio contained death threats and more disturbing language:
WARNING - NSFW LANGUAGE
“F***ing traitor, that’s what you are, you’re a f***ing piece of s*** traitor...“I hope you die. I hope everybody in your f***ing family dies. You f***ing piece of s*** trash motherf***er.”
Upton was one of the 13 Republicans who voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill championed by President Biden.
In the interview with Anderson Cooper, he noted that civility in discourse has devolved and he's concerned for his staff:
We've seen civility really downslide here. I'm concerned about my staff. They're taking these calls.
There are threats to them, our offices...These are very disturbing adult language, to say the least, that truly is frightening and a real, real bad mark in terms of civility across the country as we've seen these issues like this jump.
While Upton says that his office has gotten over 1000 'nasty' calls, a spokesperson from his office believes that over 90% of the calls are from outside of Michigan's 6th Congressional District, which encompasses all of Berrien, Cass, Kalamazoo, St. Joseph, and Van Buren, counties, and includes most of Allegan county including most of Holland.
According to the Governor's office, the infrastructure bill will bring more than $10 Billion in Infrastructure investments to the state.