After condemning Rep. Maxine Waters’s “confrontational” comment, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise brushed off a whataboutism question, pointing to then-President Donald Trump’s statements on Jan. 6 ahead of a mob attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“President Trump used the words peaceful when he talked about, you know, the statements that he made,” Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, said at a press conference on Tuesday when asked if Waters’s comments were on par with Trump’s.
“I haven’t heard Maxine saying anything about peacefully protesting. She’s talked about violence,” Scalise added. “‘Get more confrontational in the streets’ if the verdict goes the wrong way. There’s nothing peaceful about that.”
Waters, a California congresswoman, joined protests in Minnesota over the weekend and told protesters to get “more confrontational” if white, former police officer Derek Chauvin, who is on trial for his role in the death of George Floyd, is not found guilty. The jury began its deliberation on Monday.
MCCARTHY SAYS PELOSI ‘IGNORING’ WATERS’S BEHAVIOR AND THAT HE WILL INTRODUCE CENSURE RESOLUTION
Scalise is correct that Waters did not specifically call for peace in the viral clip that prompted outrage.
“I hope that we are going to get a verdict that says, ‘guilty, guilty, guilty.’ And if we don’t, we cannot go away,” Waters said. “We’ve got to stay on the street. We’ve got to get more active. We’ve got to get more confrontational. We’ve got to make sure that they know that we mean business.”
Following outrage about her comment, though, Waters told TheGrio: “I am nonviolent.” She said that when she called to get more “confrontational,” she was talking about “confronting the justice system, confronting the policing that’s going on. I’m talking about speaking up. I’m talking about legislation.”
In the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and during the second Trump impeachment trial, Democrats focused on a statement from Trump that they said added to evidence that he incited the mob. “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” Trump told the crowd at a rally ahead of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
His defense, though, pointed to another portion of Trump’s speech that called for peaceful protest: “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Monday that he will introduce a resolution to censure Waters over her comments.
“We all watched what happened and saw officer Chauvin crossed the line. We should be all focused on making sure justice is carried out,” Scalise said on Monday. “The last thing you’d want to do is give, give a grounds for appeal, that the judge himself acknowledged Maxine’s comments.”
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The judge in the trial said that Waters’s comments might have given the defense “something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned.”
“I wish elected officials would stop talking about this case, especially in a manner that is disrespectful to the rule of law and to the judicial branch and our function,” Judge Peter Cahill said Monday. “I think if they want to give their opinions, they should do so in a respectful … manner that is consistent with their oath to the Constitution, to respect a co-equal branch of government. Their failure to do so, I think, is abhorrent.”
