Rep. Maxine Waters has faced criticism from Democrats and Republicans for her comments calling for the public harassment of Trump officials. (Photo credit: Getty Images)
Congresswoman Maxine Waters won’t be attending a pair of speaking events this weekend after seeing an increase in personal threats since her comments encouraging folks to “push back” against members of Donald Trump’s administration by harassing them in public.
The California Democrat was forced to cancel two scheduled appearances in Alabama and Texas after saying she received several threatening messages and “hostile mail,” including one “very serious death threat” from someone in Texas on Monday, CNN reported.
“As the President has continued to lie and falsely claim that I encouraged people to assault his supporters, while also offering a veiled threat that I should ‘be careful’, even more individuals are leaving (threatening) messages and sending hostile mail to my office,” she wrote in a statement.
“There was one very serious death threat made against me on Monday from an individual in Texas, which is why my planned speaking engagements in Texas and Alabama were cancelled (sic) this weekend,” Waters added. “This is just one in several very serious threats the United States Capitol Police are investigating in which individuals threatened to shoot, lynch, or cause me serious bodily harm.”
The longtime congresswoman has faced backlash from both sides of the aisle after calling on protesters to publicly confront members of Trump’s Cabinet, a call to action that came amid deep frustration over the president’s controversial policy separating migrant families at the border. Public outrage over the policies led to Dept. of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen being heckled out of a Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C., and White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders being booted from an eatery in Virginia last week.
Waters’ remarks drew a sharp response from Trump himself, who dubbed her an “extraordinarily low IQ person” and warned her to “be careful what you wish for.”
Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has become, together with Nancy Pelosi, the Face of the Democrat Party. She has just called for harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for Max!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 25, 2018
The congresswoman has denied ever calling for violence against members of the Trump Cabinet, saying she only supports peaceful protests.
“I believe in peaceful, very peaceful protests,” she said on Capitol Hill earlier this week. “I have not called for the harm of anybody. This President has lied again when he’s saying that I’ve called for harm.”
