Veteran Republican strategist Rick Wilson warned this week that the MAGA movement has become so menacing that even loyal Republican officeholders now fear for their lives if they cross President Donald Trump.

Wilson, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project — a political action committee formed in 2019 by Republicans opposed to Trump's reelection — and a decades-long GOP operative, made the remarks during an appearance on the "Left Hook" podcast hosted by Wajahat Ali. It was the same conversation in which he predicted a Republican midterm blowout.

Wilson recounted the experience of a former client — a member of Congress who had initially backed Jeb Bush, then Ted Cruz, before endorsing Donald Trump late in the 2016 Republican primary. The lawmaker, Wilson stressed, was not a political radical.

The intimidation began at the congressman's first town hall following Trump's inauguration. A man wearing a red hat demanded to know whether the congressman would vote with Trump 100 percent of the time. When the lawmaker responded that he would put his district first, Wilson said, "his wife had received 10 death threats about their children."

Wilson argued that the overwhelming majority of political intimidation in the current climate comes from one direction, estimating that 99 percent of the threats, doxxing, and swatting incidents he encounters originate on the political right. His account aligns with broader reporting on escalating threats against elected officials: the U.S. Capitol Police have documented a sharp rise in threat investigations in recent years, and swatting attacks — false emergency calls designed to provoke armed police responses at a target's home — have increasingly targeted lawmakers, prosecutors, and public figures across the political spectrum. Over the past decade, Wilson claimed, every individual who has pulled a gun on him or pounded on his door has been aligned with the MAGA movement.

Across a 35-year career in politics, Wilson said he could count exactly one death threat from a Democratic-leaning individual — a man who was later found to be severely mentally ill. By contrast, he now receives death threats approximately every day or two.

"You can be murdered if you oppose Trump. That's okay with the MAGA base," Wilson said, describing Republican officeholders as living in terror of the president.

Wilson connected the climate of intimidation to broader fractures within the Republican Party in once-solidly red states, where internal divisions have intensified. The dynamic has contributed to a pattern in which incumbent Republicans who have broken with Trump, such as former Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, have faced primary challenges, censure by state parties, and sustained harassment — outcomes that critics argue chill dissent within the party's ranks. Trump himself now faces challenges that Wilson suggested could sink the GOP's prospects in the upcoming fall elections.