Trump called Gretchen Whitmer 'lockup queen' hours before FBI broke up plot to kidnap her

Hours before the FBI announced agents broke up an alleged far-right militia plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor, Donald Trump criticised Gretchen Whitmer as a “lockup queen” for stay-at-home measures in the state during the coronavirus pandemic.

He told Fox Business News host Maria Bartiromo on Thursday: “I won Michigan, which hadn't been won in decades and decades … and we should win it again because I brought so much business there because she's the lockup queen.”

The president added: “What she's done to that place is horrible. She's locked it up. She's got people like living in prison. The courts just overturned her. They said what you're doing is unconstitutional.”

Michigan’s Supreme Court had recently ruled against a 1945 public safety law invoked by the governor for restrictions to combat the spread of a virus that has infected more than 26,000 residents and killed more than 6,700.