Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) clarified Monday that when she called on supporters at a rally on Saturday to harass Trump officials she was referring to “peaceful protests.” She also insisted that it was President Trump who was “responsible for promoting violence.”
"If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd, and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere," Rep. Waters told her supporters at the rally.
President Trump responded with a tweet Monday saying Waters was "calling for harm" to his supporters.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has become, together with Nancy Pelosi, the Face of the Democrat Party. She has just called for harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for Max!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 25, 2018
"I believe in peaceful, very peaceful protests," she told reporters Monday afternoon in response to President Trump’s tweet about her. "I have not called for the harm of anybody. This President has lied again when he's saying that I've called for harm."
"He is the one who is responsible for promoting violence,” she added.
.@RepMaxineWaters moments ago: "I have not called for the harm of anybody. This @POTUS has lied again, when he's saying that I called for harm to anyone." pic.twitter.com/3NnjLpNnof
— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) June 25, 2018
"Protest is civility," she insisted, "protest is peaceful resistence to the kind of actions that we are experiencing from this president as he holds these children hostage."
In response to questions about White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders being asked to leave a restaurant because she worked for Trump, Waters said, "I have nothing to do with the way people decide to protest."
"I have no way of telling people how to protest,” she emphasized, “what they should protest. Again, it started with the restauranteur, it started with people in a restaurant. I did not create that, I did not design that, but I support their right to protest."
She also said people should not get distracted from “the real issue.”
"Let's not get diverted as the president is capable of doing, of diverting us from the real issue,” she said. “This issue is not Maxine Waters. This issue is the children. When are these children going to be connected with their parents?"
"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," she said regarding family separations at the border.
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