Waters slams Trump for political violence

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) blamed President Trump’s rhetoric for situations like the attempted mail bombings addressed to top Democrats and CNN.

“I think the president of the United States should take responsibility for the kind of violence that we’re seeing for the first time in different ways,” she said in a video posted by Blavity Wednesday.

“I think the president of the United States has been dog-whistling to his constituency making them believe that their problems are caused by those people over there. And I think that they’re acting out — that they believe that the president wants them to do and the way he wants them to act.”

Waters pointed to Trump’s praise of Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.) for body-slamming a reporter in 2017 at a campaign rally earlier this month.

“As a matter of fact, if you pay attention or you paid attention to the president during the campaign he talked violent,” she continued. “He talked about beating up on people and taking them out on a stretcher and he even said he would pay their lawyers fees to get them out. Just the other day he was laughing and basically appreciating the fact that a member of Congress slammed a journalist and he mimicked and mocked the slamming of that journalist, and he in his own way really does do a lot to promote violence. Now they are trying to turn it on us.”

Top Republicans have repeatedly called out Waters for her own use of fiery rhetoric after she called on Democrats to confront and “push back” on Trump administration officials in public earlier this year — arguing her words encourage violence against Republicans.

But Waters said the president has created a narrative that paints Democrats as aggressors, pointing to the protests during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings as an example.

“He turned it into their mob, that’s their Democratic mob — but he’s good at that, he is an expert at lying and deceiving and of course encouraging people in his own way to be violent or to be racists or to be separatist,” she continued in the video.

“I think its the worst thing to ever happen to us to have a president of this nature. And so this bombing and these packages that are being sent out — one that was evidently directed to my office was intercepted by the post office and we don’t know what’s in them.”

Despite the recent threats, Waters encouraged Democrats to continue protesting, asserting they shouldn’t let it scare them away from fighting for their cause.

“But I want to tell you we must not be intimidated to the point where we stop advocating and protesting for justice. Of course they would like to intimidate us and of course, we must be wise, we must not be foolish and act in foolish ways but we should never stop the fight for justice and equality on this country,” she said.

“And so I don’t know whether the bombs are real or not, but we should not crawl under the bed close the doors, not go out, be afraid to go to rallies, whatever, we have t keep doing what we’re doing in order to make this country right. That’s what I intend to do and as the young people said — I ain’t scared.”