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- House minority leader Kevin McCarthy plans to introduce his own resolution to censure Maxine Waters.
- McCarthy announced his decision after Marjorie Taylor Greene said she wanted to “expel” Waters for “inciting Black Lives Matter terrorism.”
- Waters has maintained that she did not encourage violence when she spoke to protesters near Brooklyn Center, Minneapolis.
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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is jumping on Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bandwagon as he plans to introduce a resolution of his own to censure Rep. Maxine Waters for what he calls “dangerous comments.”
McCarthy made this announcement after Greene said she wanted to expel Waters for “inciting violent riots and Black Lives Matter terrorism,” after comments Waters made to Minnesota protesters went viral on Twitter.
“This weekend in Minnesota, Maxine Waters broke the law by violating curfew and then incited violence. Speaker Pelosi is ignoring Waters’ behavior – that’s why I am introducing a resolution to censure Rep. Waters for these dangerous comments,” McCarthy wrote in a tweet posted on Monday evening.
According to The Hill, McCarthy could force a procedural vote on the matter, which would compel House members to participate in a roll-call vote on Waters.
Waters was speaking on Saturday to people protesting the police shooting of 20-year-old Daunte Wright at a traffic stop in Brooklyn Center, an incident that took place just 10 miles from where the high-profile murder trial of Derek Chauvin was ongoing.
According to a video posted on Twitter, Waters said she and the crowd were “looking for a guilty verdict” for Chauvin.
“We’ve got to stay in the streets, and we’ve got to demand justice,” she said. “I am hopeful that we will get a verdict that says, ‘guilty, guilty, guilty,’ and if we don’t, we cannot go away. We’ve got to get more confrontational.”
Lawmakers, including Greene and Ted Cruz, quickly accused Waters of inciting violence.
“Rep Waters is a danger to our society,” Greene tweeted, claiming that Waters had “traveled across state lines to incite riots.”
Greene said that she had moved forward with filing a resolution on Monday to “expel” Waters from Congress for “years of inciting violence.”
Waters denied that what she said to protesters encouraged violence in an interview with The Grio on Monday.
“I’m talking about confronting the justice system, confronting the policing that’s going on, I’m talking about speaking up,” Waters said.
“I am not worried that they’re going to continue to distort what I say. This is who they are and this is how they act. And I’m not going to be bullied by them,” Waters said, referring to her Republican colleagues.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has backed Waters, saying that she does not need to apologize for her remarks, adding that she did not believe Waters’s remarks incited violence.
“Maxine talked about confrontation in the manner of the civil rights movement. I myself think we should take our lead from the George Floyd family. They’ve handled this with great dignity, and no ambiguity or lack of – misinterpretation by the other side. No, I don’t think she should apologize,” Pelosi said to reporters on Capitol Hill.
However, the comments Waters made might have affected the Chauvin murder trial, as Chauvin’s defense attorneys cited Waters’ words to call for a mistrial.
Judge Peter Cahill denied the motion, but spoke of Waters’ comments harshly, rebuking her for making comments about the trial while it was still unfolding.
“I’ll give it to you that Congresswoman Waters may have given you an appeal that could lead to this whole case being overturned,” Cahill said on Monday.
It should be noted that McCarthy did not punish Alabama congressman Mo Brooks for the fiery remarks he made at the Jan 6 “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, DC.
Lawmakers pushed for Brooks to be censured or removed from the committees he sat on after he was seen telling a crowd of MAGA-clad protesters to be “American patriots” and to “start taking down names and kicking ass” in the “fight for America.”
Censure resolutions were later filed against Brooks by House Democrats.
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