Michigan lawmaker called traitor after infrastructure vote

WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., said he has received multiple death threats in the days since he voted for President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal, with the overwhelming majority of the calls coming from outside the congressman’s district.

In a CNN interview Monday, Upton played the audio of one of the calls, which he said came from a man in South Carolina.

In the call, the caller uses expletives to call Upton a “traitor.” He goes on to say he hopes Upton’s family and his entire staff die.

An Upton spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Upton told CNN his office has received several such calls after a House colleague tweeted the names and office phone numbers of the Republicans who voted in favor of the bill. The measure passed the House Friday on a 228-to-206 vote, two months after it was approved by the Senate on an overwhelming 69-to-30 vote.

Upton did not name the colleague during the CNN interview, but in an interview with the Detroit News, he pointed to a tweet by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.

Greene said last week that any House Republican who backed the measure would be “a traitor to our party, a traitor to their voters and a traitor to our donors.” After the vote, she tweeted the names and phone numbers of 12 of the 13 Republicans who voted in favor of the bill, which she described as “Joe Biden’s Communist takeover of America.”

In a statement Tuesday night, Greene stood by her tweet. Her response included Upton’s office phone number as well as the general phone number to reach members of the House.

“As a member of Congress who receives constant death threats and death wishes from the radical left, I certainly know what that feels like and I don’t condone it,” Greene said. She urged “taxpaying American citizens who pay Fred Upton’s salary” to continue to call him and “the rest of the unlucky 13” and “politely say how they feel about these traitor Republicans voting to pass Joe Biden’s Communist agenda.”