In Rep. Maxine Waters’ (D-Calif.) rebuttal to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union (SOTU) address, she said the president’s TV appearances should be censored for children.
“This president with his vulgarity and his disrespect for women and people of color is a terrible role model for our children,” Waters said in a taped response that aired on BET’s “Angela Rye’s State of the Union” Wednesday night.
“Whenever he appears on TV, there should be a disclaimer that says, ‘This may not be acceptable for children.'”
Waters said thatTrump’s first SOTU address on Tuesday night called for unity, but his track record shows the opposite.
“Yesterday Donald Trump had the audacity to call upon people to set aside differences when, in reality, he has divided Americans in ways no other modern president has done,” she said.
Waters also commented that Trump is an “unprincipled” “shameful racist.”
“One speech cannot and does not make Donald Trump presidential,” she said.
“He’s not presidential and he never will be presidential. He claims that’s he’s bringing people together but make no mistake, he is a dangerous, unprincipled, divisive, and shameful racist.”
“Thank you President Trump,” former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke tweeted after Trump’s address.
“Trump often works to convince dissatisfied elements in our society that all of their problems are caused by people of color.”
Waters talked about how Trump sympathized with neo-Nazis following the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., where counter-protester Heather Heyer died in an act of domestic terrorism. He said people were to “blame on both sides.”
The congresswoman said that Trump’s divisiveness was evident by his reported “sh**hole countries” comment about Haiti, El Salvador and African nations.
Her list of examples also included Trump calling NFL players who took a knee during the national anthem a “son of a bitch,” calling Mexican immigrants “rapists and criminals,” and the Muslim travel ban.
Waters along with several other members of the Congressional Black Caucus boycotted Trump’s SOTU address.
“Why would I take my time to go and sit and listen to a liar”Waters said on MSNBC.”Someone who lies in the face of facts, someone who can change their tune day in and day out. What does he have to say that I would be interested in”
For her criticism of Trump, Waters has received death threats. In November, a federal grand jury charged Anthony Scott Lloyd of San Pedro of Calif., with threatening to murder Waters in a phone call to her Capitol Hill office.
Using the n-word to refer to the congresswoman, he said she would “wind up dead,” for voicing her objections to Trump.
But Waters said thatLloyd’s actions did not represent the majority of her district.
“My district is very diverse, and though we don’t always agree, my constituents would never threaten me,” she said in a statement. “We are collectively focused on the progress, safety and security of our communities.”
