Appearing Saturday on MSNBC, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) once against suggested President Donald Trump was partly to blame for the death of George Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck while in custody.
A partial transcript is as follows:
ANCHOR: Tell me congresswoman whether or not you think the influence of the president is the primary factor, is it an abetting factor? These things that have gone on with black folk and law enforcement are not new of January 20, 2017. How much do you put this directly on the president, and how much of this deep systemic stuff that we haven’t quite dealt with yet?
REP. MAXINE WATERS: It’s a combination of both. This president has certainly been responsible for dog-whistling for much of that constituency that empowers him and tells them get tough and he tells police officers to be rough on those that they arrest. He has basically undermined John Lewis, one of our civil rights leaders in Congress, and talking about his district by basically saying we live in rat holes. He has disparaged blacks in so many ways. All that stuff about loving blacks is so disingenuous. Nobody believes that. He’s such a liar. He cannot be trusted. And yes, I think he has emboldened those who are racist. He’s emboldened police officers to be nastier, tough, to do things like the chokehold. I believe all of that.
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