Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) says she was joking about potentially running for president in 2020.
“I said, jokingly, ‘If the millennials wanted me to do it, I’d do it,’” Waters reportedly told The Hill on Thursday evening. “But it’s a joke.”
Media outlets speculated about Waters potentially attempting a presidential run after she accepted an invitation to speak in New Hampshire this weekend from Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH). But Waters insisted she was just responding “to the member’s request.”
“I have a lot more on the agenda,” she reportedly said. “I’m just responding. I have no presidential ambitions.”
When the Daily Caller pressed Waters about those ambitions, she said that she would do it “if the millennials wanted me to do it.”
Anti-Trump millennials have been calling her “Auntie Maxine,” and Waters said she was surprised by the outpouring of support she has been receiving from left-wing millennials. She even received a standing ovation at this year’s MTV awards show.
“I’ve been speaking out and then the millennials adopted me. I didn’t have any idea that they were paying attention, or what I was saying was resonating with them,” she told The Hill. “They started to call me ‘Auntie Maxine,’ and to tweet, and to go on Facebook and use the social media, not only to show that they were pleased that I was speaking truth to power, but they wanted to engage.”
Though she said her comments about potentially running for president were made in jest, as The Hill notes, “that’s no indication, however, that Waters intends to relax her aggressive campaign against the president.”
As Breitbart News has noted, Waters has been one of the most vicious Trump critics. Waters had led crowds in “impeach 45” chants, suggested Trump should be exiled to Russia, and declared that she has now “taken off the gloves” to battle Trump and hopefully “lock him up.” And she has urged audiences to get actively involved in the “resistance.”
“We can do this, you all, but we’ve got to stand up. I want you to rally. I want you to tweet. I want you to go on Facebook. I want you to write to your elected officials,” she recently told the Essence Festival in New Orleans. “I want you to do everything, whether it’s in a church, or whether it’s in a meeting of any kind. If you’re with the labor unions, etc., get busy. And keep going until we do what needs to be done.”
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