MSNBC "All In with Chris Hayes" - Transcript: "Republicans defend Trump's racism."

Interview

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HAYES: Joining me now Democratic Congressman Maxine Waters of California. She is chair of the House Financial Services Committee. Your view, Congresswoman, on this matter which is to say evidence the president has committed crimes or at least sufficient evidence for an indictment were he not the president but he is the president so there`s no indictment, and now we just sort of wait I guess.

REP. MAXINE WATERS (D-CA): Well, as I have said for a long time, I think that this president is eligible for you know, impeachment. Now, after you`ve said everything, you understand that the Constitution puts the ultimate power in the hands of the members of Congress.It doesn`t matter whether there is an opinion that talks about the president is not indictable. It doesn`t matter that the president has committed crimes that we cannot tie-down. If we feel that this president has committed certain crimes, if we feel that he is not a decent president, if he`s a dangerous president, if he`s not acting in the best interest of the Congress of the United States, on and on and on we can make the decision to override any opinion about whether or not he`s indictable. That`s what impeachment is all about.

HAYES: Let me -- I want to press you on that. You just said -- you just enumerated three things. Decent -- if he`s not decent, if he`s dangerous, if he`s not acting the best interests of the country, is that a kind of rough guideline for how you think about that high crimes and misdemeanors clause or does it have to be something with a more criminal bite to it in the way that you think about?

WATERS: No, that`s how I think about it. I think it is a combination of things that rise to the level of we cannot afford to have this person representing us. And I think when you take a look at the Mueller report, if you take a look at the women whose claims that he has raped, that he is basically taking advantage of them, if you take a look at the way he has lied, if you take a look at all of these things, I think it rises to the level of what we would consider high crimes and misdemeanors. It is up to the Congress of the United States of America to determine whether or not that president should stay in office.

HAYES: You have from your perch as committee chair of Financial Services Committee, I think issued document request if not formal subpoenas to Deutsche Bank which is a bank with which the President did business. I think the last time I had you here you had said that Deutsche Bank had been cooperative, and I wanted to check in on where those document requests and document production were.

WATERS: As you know, we had a good court decision that said they had to comply with the subpoena, and then it was a matter of working out the time with the court for the information to be put together and the court to basically get around to the arguments on the merits. We`re just getting there. In August, I think around the latter part of August, we will be hearing you know, what each side is going to say and basically what amounts to a court hearing, a court trial. We do not determine you know, basically the calendar of the court, and the courts are slow. And this is vacation time for judges. All of that -- yes, this is true. And so what we`re doing is we`re doing everything that we can in the investigations. So far we are working well with the courts. They`re making good decisions enforcing the subpoenas. But now you know, getting through the court and getting past all of that and all of the motions that can be put forth etcetera, it takes a lot of time.

HAYES: I want to switch gears on the last question here just to talk about what`s happened over the last several days with the president`s attacks on your colleagues, the chants of "send her back" which the president sort of very, very tepidly and weekly sort of disavowed yesterday but then essentially re-avowed today. We weren`t given an opportunity to talk about it. He sort of re-embraced his supporters who were chanting that. What`s the effect on that on Congress, on your caucus, on your fellow members, your ability to do your jobs and be confident in your own safety and security?

WATERS: Well, you know, some people were shocked that the president could be so outwardly racist. Other people were surprised and of course, you know, there`s a lot of embarrassment as our colleagues and -- as our colleagues and allies look at us from you know, across the waters you know, foreign allies. So you know, the fact of the matter is we`re trying to do everything that we can do to say that he really does not represent most of the people of this country in what he is doing and the way that he`s attacking these women and the racism that he`s putting forth. However, I, you, and others know that he`s gotten worse from the time that we first started to realize that he was identifying himself as an unworthy person, not worthy of the presidency, he has consistently gotten worse because guess what, he basically came to the conclusion that we were not going to impeach him so he keeps going and he`ll get worse. And he`s using these young women as the face of the Democratic Party scaring folks, having folks believe that here you have these foreigners. He doesn`t even know that they`re citizens of the United States of America. Foreigners who are somehow using their power to take over the Congress. This is who the Democratic Party is. They are not patriotic. They are you know, responsible for this anti-Semitism that`s going on with one of them, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. That`s his campaign. That`s what he`s using. He is divisive and he`s dangerous. And so all I can say is and I hate to keep saying it, I told you so. I started a long time ago. He clearly identified himself. He should have been impeached. He has not been impeached. He`s out of hand. He`s going to keep going. This is his campaign that you see unfolding right now.

HAYES: Congresswoman Maxine Waters, thank you for making some time on this Friday night.

WATERS: You`re welcome.

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