Well, if there’s one Democrat President-elect Donald Trump can dispense with offering an olive branch, Rep. Maxine Water (D-CA) is the one. On Monday, she told MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff that she would a) never accept an invitation to sit down with Trump to work on an issue in which they found common ground; and b) didn’t think that incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) should work with Trump where he could either. She also said that the Democratic Party is too nice when they’re in power to work with people. The Washington Free Beacon clipped the exchange:
No, absolutely. I do not agree. I tell you that been a problem in my party that when we are in power, we are nice. We bend over backwards to work with people,” Waters said. “Trump has stepped on everybody. He has no respect for his own colleagues, let alone those on the opposite side of the aisle.”Waters continued by asking why she or Democrats should trust Trump when “he’ll tell you more thing today and another thing tomorrow.”
“I have no intention of pretending everything is alright and that we are going to work together. For me, as the ranking member of the Financial Service Committee, where he said he’s going to bring down Dodd-Frank and he’s going to get rid of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, I am going to fight him every inch of the way,” Waters said.
Well, she’s a coastal Democrat from a deep blue state. Of course, she’s angry that Clinton got beat on November 8. Her entire constituency of frothing progressives still hasn’t processed what happened either. They’re just going to have to deal with the consequences of this election. Yet, is Water seriously going to walk away if Trump wants to talk about issues, like childcare, helping the inner cities, or trying to get something done about criminal justice reform? She’d be a moron to not at least hear what he has to say.
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President-elect Trump has a Republican Congress to work with concerning his agenda, so Waters’ declaration isn’t necessarily a serious threat. I expect Trump will offer olive branches on some issues to Democrats. What they do when he offers his hand is entirely up to them. If they do swat it away, he has instant ammunition to explain why some things aimed at helping American job creation have stalled. Democrats don’t want to work together—and he has the skills to drive that home to Middle America. The coastal elites would have no clue what to do.
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