Michigan GOP chairman calls several top Democratic women ‘witches’

LANSING, Mich. — The leader of Michigan’s Republican Party referred to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and two other top Democratic elected woman as “witches” that the GOP wants to “soften up” for a “burning at the stake” in the 2022 election.

He also joked about assassination when he was asked how to remove two GOP congressmen, Reps. Fred Upton and Peter Meijer, who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump.

Ron Weiser’s statements Thursday during a local Republican meeting, which are on video, were first reported by The Detroit News on Friday.

Weiser, who also is an elected member of the University of Michigan Board of Regents, said multiple times that the party is focused on defeating “three witches” — a misogynistic reference to Whitmer, state Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who are up for re-election in 2022.

“Our job now is to soften up those three witches and make sure that when we have good candidates to run against them that they are ready for the burning at the stake,” he said. “Maybe the press heard that, too.”

Whitmer, whose coronavirus lockdown last year led armed demonstrators to protest, became the target of an alleged kidnapping plot by anti-government extremists whose ringleader initially talked of recruiting 200 men to storm the state Capitol, take hostages and “execute tyrants,” according to investigators.

Some in the crowd appeared to demand the party cut off support for Upton and Meijer, who were among 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump over the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol. Someone asked Weiser about “witches in our own party.”

He said: “Ma’am, other than assassination, I have no other way other than voting out. OK? You people have to go out there and support their opponents. You have to do what you need to get out the vote in those areas. That’s how you beat people.”

Weiser’s spokesman, Ted Goodman, said Weiser made it clear that it is up to voters to determine GOP nominees through the primary process. Weiser, a major Republican donor, personally gave money to both Upton, a longtime congressman, and Meijer — now a freshman representative — in 2020.