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Maxine Waters Denies Ever Using Violent Rhetoric Toward Trump, Administration Officials

Leah Barkoukis
Leah Barkoukis  |  February 08, 2021 7:00 AM

Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters claimed on Sunday that she never encouraged violence against members of the Trump administration.

“As a matter of fact, if you look at the words that I used, the strongest thing I said was tell them they're not welcome," the California Democrat told MSNBC’s Ali Velshi after he asked if she ever “glorified or encouraged” violence.

“Talk to them," she recalled saying. "Tell them they’re not welcome. I didn’t say go and fight. I didn’t say anybody was going to have any violence. And so they can’t make that statement.”

Waters’ infamous 2018 comments came after backlash over the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy. On MSNBC at the time, she said “the people…[are] going to absolutely harass them.”

This is not the first time she argued that she did not incite violence against her political opponents. In September of 2018, she defended her speech about how people should confront Trump administration officials. 

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"I did not threaten [Trump] constituents and supporters. I do that all the time, but I didn't do that that time," Waters told a Los Angeles crowd. 

Waters said she does not advocate violence. 

"What bothered me so much was, they tried to frame that as violence," she said. "That's not violence…I do not advocate violence.”

Update: As Grabien Media's Tom Elliott pointed out, Waters' comments were just some of the many examples of Democrats "endorsing violence as a political tactic." He proceeded to provide several instances.