Those remarks drew criticism from allies of the president and prompted Trump himself to write on Twitter that Waters had “just called for harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement.
On Monday, the congresswoman said she had no control over how people might protest the administration but argued that, contrary to complaints about a lack of civility in the type of political discourse urged by Waters, “protest is civility.
Rep. Maxine Waters denied on Monday that she had encouraged anyone to "harm" Trump administration officials, and accused President Donald Trump of twisting her words.
"I believe in peaceful, very peaceful protests," she told reporters on Capitol Hill, according to CNN. "I have not called for the harm of anybody. This President has lied again when he’s saying that I’ve called for harm."
Waters (D-Calif.), in remarks over the weekend in Los Angeles, urged opponents of the president to confront members of Trump’s Cabinet wherever they are and protest.
"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," Waters said Saturday at a speech.
Those remarks drew criticism from allies of the president and prompted Trump himself to write on Twitter that Waters had “just called for harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement."
And while the California congresswoman denied she was trying to incite violence, members of her own party appeared to distance themselves from her comments, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who said Waters’ call for liberals to publicly hound Trump advisers was “not right” and “not American.”
"The president’s tactics and behavior should never be emulated,” Schumer said in a floor speech on Monday. “It should be repudiated by organized, well-informed and passionate advocacy."
Waters’ initial remarks were fueled by outrage over the Trump administration’s immigration policy that has resulted in thousands of children being separated from their parents after crossing into the U.S. illegally.
The California lawmaker’s call for protests against Trump administration officials also came as such confrontations have ramped up, including last week inside a Mexican restaurant where Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen was eating. More recently, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a Lexington, Virginia, restaurant, an incident that prompted the president to suggest online that the restaurant’s cleanliness was not up to par.
On Monday, the congresswoman said she had no control over how people might protest the administration but argued that, contrary to complaints about a lack of civility in the type of political discourse urged by Waters, “protest is civility. Protest is about peaceful resistance to the kind of actions that we are experiencing."
"I have nothing to do with the way people decide to protest," the lawmaker said. "I have no way of telling people how to protest, 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."
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