Trump Launches Veiled Threat Against Congresswoman: “Be Careful What You Wish For”

The president also accused Rep. Maxine Waters of having an “extremely low IQ.”

Brian Cahn/ZUMA

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President Donald Trump on Monday falsely accused Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) of attempting to incite violence against his supporters, warning the California lawmaker to “be careful what you wish for.” He also viciously branded Waters as being an “extremely low IQ person.”

The president’s tweet is a blatant misrepresentation of Waters’ actual comments, in which she recently urged Democrats to confront Trump administration officials in public with words of protest, not violence. “Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up,” Waters said at a rally in Los Angeles Saturday. “And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd.”

“Tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere,” she said, before speaking out against Trump’s immigration policy separating migrant children from their parents.

Conservatives instantly seized on the remarks, which came amid a recent spate of public protests against Trump officials inside privately owned restaurants. The latest involved White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Saturday, when the owner of a Lexington, Virginia, restaurant asked her to leave over the Trump administration’s “inhumane” policies.

Adding to the misrepresentations Monday, Trump also appeared to accuse House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of supporting Waters’ remarks moments after Pelosi did exactly the opposite.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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