Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA) found herself on Tuesday in need of doubling down on her belief that legal intimidation and tampering was the way of achieving her preferred outcomes, so MSNBC’s ReidOut host Joy Reid was happy to both give her that forum and decry those who disagreed with Waters’s recent comments in Minnesota and her views on criminal justice reform as racists.
Reid gave Waters nearly 10 minutes of almost uninterrupted time to flaunt herself as a righteous figure. To Reid’s delight, Waters decried Republicans “mak[ing] a target of me” because she’s “passionate on these issues” and she’s someone who believes elected officials should be exerting “their influence...to do right.”
Waters then spoke directly about her Sunday calls for activists “to get more confrontational” and how it put House colleagues in difficult position not because of her words, but because they rule over districts filled with horrible racists (click “expand”):
And so, I'm pleased that I feel strong enough and able enough to go out with the young people to say Aunty Maxine is here, and I support you, and I want you to be activists. I'm so sorry that it causes pain often types with my colleagues. Many times, they're in these districts where they're frightened, where they have a lot of racism, where they still haven't moved to the point that they can have a decent conversation about these issues, and sometimes it's very difficult for them, but they stood up with me today.
They put me out for censure because of my visit to Minneapolis, and my colleagues stood with me, and voted to table the motion that was put up to censure me because the Republicans love it use me as a target. They raise money on my backs. That’s that Maxine Waters, that black woman, who is so uppity, someone we can't control. You have to make sure I have enough money to keep her from getting reelected and I keep getting reelected and these poor people, many of them retirees that keep giving them their money, they don't seem to understand they're not going to get me out of office. I'm here until I decide to retire.
Reid was on cloud nine, pointing to the female co-founders of Black Lives Matter as “also” being “familiar with being black women who are not under control and therefore are targeted on a routine basis.”
Reid bragged that Republicans “tried to censure you,” but “did not succeed in that today” and falsely claimed that Republicans were not “eager to be a part of” any “conversation” about policing reform.
In other words, disagreeing with Black Lives Matter meant you’re both racist and sexist. It’s similar to the term “systemic racism” that Noah Pollak masterfully eviscerated as “delegitimiz[ing] an entire society without blaming anyone in particular” while “signif[ying] everything and nothing simultaneously.”
And as we’ve repeatedly debunked here at NewsBusters (including on Tuesday night), the GOP did offer ideas for reform led by Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), but were filibustered by Democrats.
By refusing to support the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, Reid argued Republicans don’t want to “put laws on the books that could actually help to prevent the next George Floyd from dying.”
Waters then lied about her political opponents, saying the entire party believes police “shouldn’t be challenged in their work” and, following that doozy, simultaneously assert activists should continue to harass certain groups until they kowtow to their demands and that the word “confrontational” is “non-violent” (click “expand”):
It's not going to go away because elected officials sit and think, well, let me see, this is wrong, I've got to take care of this. Often times, we're too safe in what we do, and we don't want to make any waves. And so, that's why it's so important to have activism, and that's what the civil rights movement was all about. It was about activism. It was about confrontation. As a matter of fact, I went back and did some research on Martin Luther King. He had a project called Project C, and you know what that was for? Project confrontation. Confrontation. And a lot of people see that as bad, and turned my words into violence. It's not about violence. Martin Luther King was about nonviolence. I am nonviolent. When they take words like confrontation, which certainly confrontation was used in the sit-ins for the civil rights legislation, the marches, the prayers, all of that’s confrontation, and so we have got to make sure that we continue to define who we are, what we do, what we care about, and not be so intimidated. We're afraid to move. The young people want to see their elders stand up. They want to feel loved and protected and they're out there now, and they have joined in with Black Lives Matters and other organizations. They're telling us we're here to help get justice for all of us. We have no future unless you are on this case, unless you are dealing with the injustices that have taken place that we are confronted with.
And so, I'm so pleased about this verdict today. And no matter the criticism that I get, no matter the judge who even went off, you know, about Maxine Waters, that's all right by me. I will continue to do what I think is in the best interest of our people. I will continue to speak truth to power, and I will continue to be an activist legislator....We must all see that we have a role in helping to bring about justice in this country. We have a role to ensure that the people can expect to live in a real democracy, with respect for the constitution, and respect for each other. So here we are. As someone said to me today, I'm not just celebrating, I'm relieved.
Later, Reid continued building this strawman about the GOP, telling Congresswoman Val Demings (D-FL) that the right only “love[s] to talk about police when they want to use them for their own political purposes,” while leftists ostensibly have only the best intentions and want to pass the George Floyd bill so police can do their jobs.
Imagine being so brain dead and obsequious to Reid that you actually think people on the right hate non-white people so much that they believe police should be able to use force with impunity.
In contrast, Fox News Prime Time and this week’s host Ben Domenech took a different approach. Domenech brought in podcast host Kmele Foster and took note of how George Floyd’s death was “reflected through the media environment entirely through the lens of race where Derek Chauvin is essentially a stand-in for every white American” and Floyd was “a stand in for every black American.”
“To me, that is something to sign to foment racial rage, outrage, and — and to, you know, really spread the kind of toxic environment that we have seen in recent years,” he added.
After remarks from President Biden and Vice President Harris, Domenech and Foster honed in on the reality that the facts of police-involved deaths should be independently and thoroughly scrutinized (click “expand”):
DOMENECH: I want to get your reaction to the way that Joe Biden depicted the way that black Americans think about cops and fear for their lives every night, every day, their kids going to the grocery store, et cetera. Do you think that is an accurate depiction of the nation?
FOSTER: Well, let me — let me say a couple of things. I did mention earlier but I will refrain here. The state has the monopoly on the legitimate use of force. That’s police officers, the — the government has that and it is appropriate for that reason to scrutinize the use of force by the state. It’s important. It is uniquely problematic when civilians are killed in interactions with government agents. This is important to always keep at the forefront of our minds. I also think it’s important to keep things in perspective. And I think talking about people being perpetually afraid of being murdered on their way to the gas station or while shopping at the supermarket effectively by members of law enforcement — that was the dispensable animation on the part of the president during his remarks — and I just think that it is absurd.
DOMENECH: Mmhmm.
FOSTER: I don't think people actually live in fear in that way. If we are, however, going to zoom in on a circumstance, we can take a look at the circumstance in Chicago. We can look at the Adam Toledo shooting which a lot of people have been focusing on. And we could talk about the milieu that Adam Toledo comes out of and that milieu is a city where 907 people have been shot since the beginning of this year. Those are war zone stats. We are talking about law enforcement, which is involved in a vanishingly small relative to the number of interactions with civilians and number of shootings. Every one of those shootings matters. They — they are involved in some number of civilian deaths. Everyone of those deaths matter. They should all be investigated impartially and thoughtfully and we should pursue reforms to keep those numbers low. But if we’re talking about these things in hyperbolic ways and we’re ignoring the actual circumstances that genuinely make people afraid to leave their houses in certain circumstances, the — the historic rises in murder rates in many cities in this country over the course of the last 12 months — in many respects, connected directly to civil unrest that gripped the country during the wake of this what’s been described as a racial reckoning — I don't think we are being serious.
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To see the relevant MSNBC transcript from April 20, click here.
