Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) on Saturday called on people to confront Trump Cabinet officials in public spaces like restaurants and department stores to protest the administration’s policies.
“I have no sympathy for these people that are in this administration who know it is wrong what they’re doing on so many fronts but they tend to not want to confront this president,” Waters said in an interview on MSNBC.
{mosads}”For these members of his Cabinet who remain and try to defend him they’re not going to be able to go to a restaurant, they’re not going to be able to stop at a gas station, they’re not going to be able to shop at a department store, the people are going to turn on them, they’re going to protest, they’re going to absolutely harass them until they decide that they’re going to tell the president ‘no I can’t hang with you, this is wrong this is unconscionable and we can’t keep doing this to children,’ ” she continued.
Waters’s call comes as the Trump administration faces major backlash over the handling of its “zero tolerance” immigration policy, which has resulted in the separation of immigrant families.
Protesters confronted Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen at a Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C., last week, yelling “shame” at Nielsen and “End Texas concentration camps.”
Demonstrators in a separate incident outside Nielsen’s home on Friday blasted audio of crying migrant children who had been separated from their parents.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has also faced public backlash for her work in the administration, recently being told by one of the owners of the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Va., to leave due to her role in the administration.
“I’m not a huge fan of confrontation,” co-owner Stephanie Wilkinson told The Washington Post. “I have a business, and I want the business to thrive. This feels like the moment in our democracy when people have to make uncomfortable actions and decisions to uphold their morals.”
Wilkinson cited Sanders’s support of policies banning transgender people from the military and separating families at the border.
“I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so,” Sanders said in response to the incident.
Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.) defended Sanders in an interview on Sunday, saying she should have been served at the restaurant.
“The restaurant owner should have served her,” Cummings said. “But this tone is horrible. But again, I think President Trump has created this.”
CORRECTION: This story was corrected on Sept. 10 to show that Waters’s comments were made in an MSNBC interview, and not at a rally.