Rep. Maxine Waters said members of the Donald Trump administration should expect continued harassment at restaurants and in public if they keep defending his “zero tolerance” immigration stance that separated and detained thousands of migrant children away from their parents.
The California Democrat spoke Saturday at a rally in Los Angeles and later on MSNBC about how the American people will continue to personally target President Trump’s immigration policy defenders in public spaces. In the past two weeks, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a Virginia restaurant and Senior Advisor Stephen Miller and DHS Kirstjen Nielsen were both separately confronted at restaurants and even Nielsen’s home. Congresswoman Waters told MSNBC Saturday that members of Trump’s cabinet should not be able to cry foul or play the victim given their targeting of migrant families.
“I have no sympathy for these people that are in this administration who know it is wrong what they’re doing on so many fronts but they tend to not want to confront this president,” Waters said. “For these members of his cabinet who remain and try to defend him they’re not going to be able to go to a restaurant, they’re not going to be able to stop at a gas station, they’re not going to be able to shop at a department store, the people are going to turn on them, they’re going to protest, they’re going to absolutely harass them until they decide that they’re going to tell the president ‘no I can’t hang with you, this is wrong this is unconscionable and we can’t keep doing this to children.'”
Waters gave an impassioned speech to a Los Angeles rally Saturday and sent a message to Trump’s supporters: “You think we’re rallying now you ain’t seen nothing yet,” she exclaimed. “Already you have members of your cabinet being booed out of restaurants. Who have protesters taking up at your house chanting ‘no peace, no sleep.'”
She continued, “Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up, and 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… Mr. President, we will see you every day, every hour of the day, every where that we are to let you know you can’t get away with this,” she concluded to raucous applause.