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It’s been more than two weeks since Nancy Guthrie was abducted from her home in Tucson.
Shortly after the kidnapping, Donald Trump reached out to Nancy’s daughter, Today show anchor Savannah Guthrie, and promised her the full support of the federal government.
Now, he’s doubling down and threatening the kidnappers with the most severe penalty of them all.
In a new interview with The New York Post, Trump promised consequences for the kidnappers would be “very, very severe — the most severe.”
When asked if the government would push for the death penalty if it should turn out that Nancy is no longer living, Trump replied:
“The most, yeah — that’s true.”
Law enforcement is still approaching their investigation as a missing persons case, meaning they’re operating under the assumption that Nancy is still alive.
Trump contacted the Guthrie family by phone shortly after Nancy’s disappearance.
And on February 4, he expressed his thoughts on the abduction in a Truth Social post:
“ALL Federal Law Enforcement to be at the family’s, and Local Law Enforcement’s, complete disposal, IMMEDIATELY. We are deploying all resources to get her mother home safely,” Trump wrote.
The move surprised many, as Savannah is not a member of the MAGA movement, and usually, Trump is not quick to offer favors to public figures who don’t support him.
But as many have pointed out, Savannah is a beloved figure across party lines, and many upper-class Americans are experiencing intense anxiety with regard to the Nancy’s abduction.
In many countries, members of wealthy families are kidnapped and held for ransom with surprising frequency.
It’s a crime that does not happen very often in the US. And for obvious reasons, the very wealthy in this country would like to see it stay that way.
Murders are usually prosecuted at the state level, but there might be just cause for federal intervention here.
For one, an informant claims that Nancy is being held in Mexico, and if she was transported across the border, then her abduction might fall under the feds’ jurisdiction.
Arizona does have the death penalty, but it’s seldom used.
The state has carried out just two executions since 2022, and as the Post notes, “many of the 109 inmates on the state’s death row have been there for decades.”
But if it turns out that Nancy was killed and the perpetrators dragged her loved ones through hell with weeks of uncertainty, then you can bet that the public furor will be unlike anything we’ve seen before.
And in a situation like that, even people who typically oppose the death penalty might find themselves feeling very little sympathy for anyone involved in Nancy’s death.
