Maxine Waters: ‘Every Day We Have Seen This Nation Get More Racist’
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) says America is getting more racist every day.
The 81-year-old career politician appeared Saturday on KTLA’s “Inside California Politics,” where she was asked for reaction to a speech by the Senate’s only black Republican, Tim Scott, who on Wednesday delivered a rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s address to a joint session of Congress.
“Well, you know, I don’t know if he was counseled to say that or whether he really believes that,” Waters said. “If you really believe that, then he has missed not only the history of the country but what is going right now. As we watched the invasion of the Capitol on January 6, those people following Trump say they were taking back their government, and they were willing to harm people.”
“As a matter of not only were they willing to harm people but Capitol Police, who happened to be people of color, African-American, they were calling them names of the N-word. Every day we have seen this nation get more racist than anybody thought perhaps would be at this point in time,” she said.
Waters added: “We’ve been through the civil rights movement where of course, we made some progress, but this president that we had Trump was taking us backward. He was making racist comments. You know, identify himself with people like the Ku Klux Klan and the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and QAnon. I mean, that is racism defined in the most obvious way, and so to say that this is not a racist country, maybe he meant to say that there are many people who are not racist in this country. But yes, we have a problem with racism.”
In his rebuttal, Scott (R-SC) slammed Biden, saying the president delivered only “empty platitudes” in his address.
“He promised to unite a nation. To lower the temperature. To govern for all Americans, no matter how we voted,” Scott said of Biden. “That was the pitch. You just heard it again. But our nation is starving for more than empty platitudes. We need policies and progress that bring us closer together.”
“Tonight we also heard about a so-called ‘Family Plan.’ Even more taxing, even more spending, to put Washington even more in the middle of your life — from the cradle to college. The beauty of the American Dream is that families get to define it for themselves,” Scott said.
“We should be expanding opportunities and options for all families — not throwing money at certain issues because Democrats think they know best.”
The black lawmaker also blasted Biden for claiming America is racist. “Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country. It’s backwards to fight discrimination with different types of discrimination. And it’s wrong to try to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present.”
