Popular fact-checking publication PolitiFact rated a claim that Rep. Maxine Waters said supporters of former President Donald Trump “were not welcome here” as “mostly false,” as Waters’s comments were aimed at Cabinet officials.
“Waters did say that members of Trump’s Cabinet are ‘not welcome anymore, anywhere’ in a June 2018 critique of the administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy,” PolitiFact reported.
The fact-checker added that the suggestion that she was directing those comments at Trump supporters was “mostly false,” because she did not direct these comments at his supporters, only members of his administration.
The fact-check was apparently the result of a Facebook post that misquoted Waters as saying “every Trump supporting American” is not “welcome here.”
But the actual June 2018 quote targeted members of Trump’s Cabinet.
“If you think we’re rallying now, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” Waters said at the time. “Already, you have members of your Cabinet that are being booed out of restaurants, who are — protesters taking up at their house, who are saying, ‘no peace, no sleep. No peace, no sleep.’”
“And so, let’s stay the course. Let’s make sure we show up, wherever we have to show up,” Waters continued “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.”
Waters later defended her comments, saying that although she did not threaten Trump’s supporters in that speech, she has threatened them in the past.
“I did not threaten [Trump] constituents and supporters. I do that all the time, but I didn’t do that that time,” Waters said during a speech after her June comments.
But Politifact still rated the claim as “mostly false.”
“And while Waters did make statements suggesting Trump Cabinet members should be singled out in public, she did not direct her comments at Trump supporters broadly, as this post suggests,” the fact-checker reported.
The outlet went on to report that the claim is now “flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed” thanks to their rating.
PolitiFact did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
