That should be about it, but one of the things that other Democrats have pointed out is that they feel that the Republican Party, led by Donald Trump, is moving in a certain direction and that makes it very difficult. So while it sounds great to sit down and have a beer with your political opponent, at the same time, there's a huge divide at the moment. It's hard. I'm not going to say it's easy. You have to have thick skin and a short memory. During the pandemic, when things were at their most tense, when the former president was calling me by name, “that woman from Michigan,” and I was getting a lot of threats, the Republican-led Congress, who had worked pretty well with me up until that moment, really turned on me. That was the moment everything changed. There's a photo in the book that I took from my window on my phone when there was a protest. People were coming out in cars and blocking the Capitol, holding signs calling me a Nazi. I saw the Confederate flag. I also saw a Barbie doll dressed like me, hanging with a noose. It was shocking. There was a Republican leader who was on the same stage as the people who were on trial for taunting me and ultimately trying to kidnap and kill me. But I still had to keep negotiating with that guy, because I had to get the budget passed.
Let's talk about that period. That's when you became a national celebrity. You and then-President Trump were at odds very early on, to say the least, and you became a symbol of what Republicans saw as draconian pandemic restrictions. You faced protests and death threats. In October 2020, 14 men were arrested for plotting to kidnap you and overthrow the Michigan state government. You write in your book that the press called this a kidnapping plot, but you say that's not accurate. Can you tell us why that's not the case? Just recently, an individual showed up in Judge Kavanaugh’s yard and it was reported as an assassination attempt. It was one individual. He was arrested long before the threat became a reality for Judge Kavanaugh. I’m grateful for that. I recognize that threats, no matter who you are or what your political views are, are destabilizing to our democratic institutions. And when that happens, I think it’s really important that we all speak up. The way it was reported and how there were 12 to 14 individuals who had been plotting and training for months. They had set up what they called a “kill house” and were running a scenario to kidnap and kill me. Let me be very clear, they had no intention of holding me for ransom. Their intention was to hold a fake trial and execute me, like a terrorist organization would. It was very clear in many of their communications that that was the plan. And they had been surveilling the vacation home that my husband and I own on multiple occasions over the course of several months. They had plans to blow up bridges, kill police officers, and even burn down the state capitol and lock us inside. This whole thing is being called a kidnapping plot, but that feels like it downplays the seriousness of it.
You write in your book that you would like to meet one of the conspirators who pleaded guilty and is now in prison. What would you like to know? I want to understand, I want to understand, what led this group of people to take such an extreme position.
Do you think there is something we need to understand? Maybe. Maybe not. But I want to see. I want to know. Was it because there weren't any economic opportunities for that person? Was it because they got laid off during the pandemic and they were really worried about how they were going to pay the rent? What made them angry?
