Former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), now an MSNBC contributor, said Monday on “Deadline” that Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) “didn’t advocate violence” with her comments about being confrontational.
When asked what should happen if the jury does not deliver a guilty verdict in the case of Derek Chauvin, Waters said, “We’ve got to stay active, get more active, more confrontational, make sure that they know we mean business.”
McCaskill said, “I heard a defense lawyer who was trying, without much success, to derail this trial as the jury was beginning their deliberations. Now, will he raise these things on appeal? I’m sure he will if, in fact, Derek Chauvin is convicted. But the point that I think has been eloquently made is that when you have an event like this, and all the events surrounding this in a country where we have freedom of speech, people are going to talk about it.”
She continued, “And you know, was Maxine Waters careful about what she said? No. She wasn’t careful. But she also didn’t advocate violence. There was nothing she said. Confrontational is what peaceful disobedience is all about. Those kids that sat at the lunch counter, they weren’t hitting anyone. They didn’t have an AR-15. They weren’t mowing people down with multiple magazines. They were being confrontational. And I think that’s what Maxine Waters was referring to. It’s just the right and the media on the right that is trying to twist it into some kind of, you know, her saying, let’s all get violent. She didn’t say that. She said, we have to keep protesting, and we have to keep confronting injustice if, in fact, this man is not convicted.”
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