Maxine Waters: ‘I Stand By My Speech’ Calling Public to ‘Harass’ Trump Staffers

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) told a press conference on Capitol Hill on Monday that she stands by her speech calling on the public to harass members of the Trump administration.

Waters spoke at a press conference, as recorded by Fox News.

She said that she did not think that Democrats had criticized her — despite statements from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) that Waters’s rhetoric was “unacceptable,” and from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) that her words were “not American.”

Rather, she insisted that she was merely stating the fact that there would be “ongoing protest” and “peaceful resistance” against President Donald Trump and his administration over his immigration policy.

Asked whether she regretted the way she called on the public to “harass” members of the Trump administration, Water said:

Well, I don’t think Democrats are really saying that, or really criticizing me as such. When I speak truth to power, I do it in a way that I can stand with what I’m saying. I am saying that this president has done a horrible thing. That this administration that’s supporting him, and not standing up and speaking the truth, or supporting the president in a way that continues his ability to hold onto these children, or not find them, what have you. And so when I spoke, I stand by my speech in saying that the protests have already started, they’re probably going to continue, but the way to deal with all of this is simply to come up with a credible plan by which the American people can get relieved of this trauma that we’re all experiencing because he’s not allowing these children to be connected to their parents.

Waters said that she was not responsible for White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders being ejected from the Red Hen restaurant in Virginia on Friday. “I have nothing to do with the way people decide to protest. Protest is the democratic way, as long as it is peaceful. I believe in peaceful protest. It is guaranteed to you in a democracy. I have no way of telling people how to protest, what they should protest.”

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.