Meet the Press, April 17, 2022:
CHUCK TODD: You got death threats for voting for infrastructure spending.
REP. FRED UPTON: I did.
CHUCK TODD: You played these voicemails. We played these voicemails.
REP. FRED UPTON: That’s why I’m here today.
CHUCK TODD: In some ways it is, isn’t it? It made it easier to say, “I’m out.”
REP. FRED UPTON: Yeah, well, death threats, I mean, they never were like we had this last year, but it was pretty crazy. And remember, that was a Republican bill. I mean, literally, a year ago this week, Governor Hogan brought a bunch of us up to his place in Annapolis, Republicans, Democrats, senators, governors, House members, both sides of the aisle. We defined what infrastructure ought to be, and we decided how to pay for it, and it passed 69-30 in the Senate. It was the issue all last summer. Lindsey Graham, Trump’s best friend, voted for it.
CHUCK TODD: So if you’re getting death threats, what’s the likelihood of somebody watching what happened to you, and going, “Yeah, forget it. I’m not going to vote.”
REP. FRED UPTON: Yeah, hey, you know what? It’s going to be a detriment getting good people to run, it really will be. Because I’ve got a school board member that lives on my street, I think he got death threats too, just over the mask mandate. So –
CHUCK TODD: We have a story out of Georgia where they can’t find anybody to be the elections person in Fulton County.
REP. FRED UPTON: Yeah.
CHUCK TODD: Because of threats.
REP. FRED UPTON: I believe it. I believe it. You know, it puts you at risk, particularly when they threaten not only you, and I like to think I’m pretty fast, but when they threaten your spouse, or your kids, or whatever, that’s what really makes it frightening.