Michele Morrow – who won the Republican Party primary for North Carolina superintendent of public instruction earlier this month – adamantly declined to explain why she called for violence against prominent Democratic politicians on social media – as well as her attacks on transgender students – when a CNN journalist asked her about her inflammatory rhetoric.
Morrow is a homeschooling activist who won a majority of the vote from her state’s Republicans in the March 5 primary. She lists her experience “protecting children from” obscene materials as her past experience on her website and says she has worked “with voters and elected officials to pass bills that protect parental rights and religious freedoms.”
She does not include her advocacy for a state constitutional amendment to abolish the state Board of Education or her promotion of QAnon conspiracy theories on her website.
Earlier this month, a CNN report uncovered some incendiary social media posts she has written. In one 2020 Twitter post, she said she wanted “a Pay Per View of [former President Barack Obama] in front of the firing squad.”
“We could make some money back from televising his death,” she wrote.
“Death to ALL traitors!!” she wrote in another tweet in response to a picture of Obama in an electric chair.
In a December 2020 tweet, she called for the death of then-President-elect Joe Biden when he asked people to wear masks during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Never. We need to follow the Constitution’s advice and KILL all TRAITORS!!! #JusticeforAmerica,” she wrote.
CNN reporter Shimon Prokupecz asked her about her violent rhetoric on social media in a heated discussion.
“I want to ask you… do you still stand by your comments about former President Barack Obama and that he should be executed, calling for the death of other presidents?” he asked.
“Have a good night!” Morrow said, trying to end the conversation.
“Do you stand by what you’ve said about the public education system and that needs to be destroyed?” Prokupecz asked. She answered, “No comment.”
“Do you understand the concern that people have with this nomination that you now have?” Prokupecz asked.
“Do you know that education is a problem in this entire country?” Morrow said angrily. “I’m focused on helping the families of North Carolina for their children to get quality education for them to be safe and for us to be sure that our money is going into the classroom rather than bureaucracies.”
“But you have said such hurtful things, too, about the education- in terms of transgender students,” Prokupecz pressed.
“Everyone is so done with the gotcha moments,” Morrow retorted.
“This is not a gotcha,” Prokupecz responded. “This is your own words, ma’am… you have said that the former president-“
“How do you know?” Morrow asked, even though she was publicly posting her calls for execution on Twitter, which is now X.
“Because you tweeted — are those not your tweets?” Prokupecz asked pointedly, telling her that she had an “opportunity” to say that the tweets were written by someone else if that was her claim.
Prokupecz asked if they had discussed teachers indoctrinating children and whether they had made similar statements about students.
Morrow asked if anyone had witnessed her attending school board meetings in the past five years, because she would have an answer for them.
In addition to calling for the deaths of Obama and Biden, in 2019, she publicly demanded the death of Rep. Ilhan Omar (R-MN) – who is Black and Muslim – for “treason.”
She wrote that Omar “and her other law-hating Dems must be getting a little nervous. Are they just realizing the punishment for treason is death?!?”
Morrow also commented on North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and used the hashtags #PrisonTimeforFederalCrime and #DeathToTraitors.
She even once criticized actor Jim Carrey, suggesting he was “likely searching for adrenochrome.” The QAnon conspiracy theory claims that there is a secret, international cabal of Satanic pedophiles made up of powerful Democratic and Hollywood figures that Donald Trump is secretly fighting to dismantle. In some versions of the conspiracy theory, the cabal is harvesting adrenochrome, a psychoactive drug that they claim is taken from tortured and murdered children after they are sacrificed to Satan.
