CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Maxine Waters

Interview

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ACOSTA: And Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California joins me now. She is the chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services.

Congresswoman, thanks for joining us.

I want to read from an op-ed that you wrote for the "L.A. Times." Let me put this up on screen.

It says: Confronting injustice has been my life's work. Not because of who I am. The right wing and members of Congress who subscribe to the views of groups like QAnon, the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys and the KKK have targeted me. Those very people who have done so to divert attention from the fact that they aided and abetted a violent domestic terrorist insurrection led by Donald Trump, to target me and say that I was violent or encouraging violence is a blatant distortion of the truth.

Congresswoman, I wanted to show that to our viewers, but looking back, why was it important for you to use that word "confrontational" at the time?

WATERS: Well, let me just say that you're absolutely correct in reading what I wrote about what had happened in Minneapolis and what is happening in this atmosphere that we're in. I have been involved with dealing with police abuse for many, many years.

It started many years ago in Los Angeles with the killing of a woman named Eula Love. And Daryl Gates was a police chief that used chokeholds to kill black men and also a battering ram to tear down the doors of people in the black community.

And so I have also lived with the fact that so many young unarmed men in particular and women are being killed by the police and the black community is afraid of the police. And these young boys who are getting stopped, they think they may have a better chance of running than sticking with the police because the police may, as was so-called happened with Daunte in Minneapolis, get killed by mistake or just get killed by the police, shot in the back.

It is a very, very uneasy time in the black community. The mothers and the fathers and the family are afraid for their children and particularly young black men to be on the street thinking they're going to get stopped and they will not get back home.

They are counseling constantly their children, if you get stopped, please don't say anything. Please show your hands. Please say yes, sir. Do everything you can do to keep from being killed because we can't guarantee you that the people that we pay to protect and serve you will do that rather than kill you.

And so, Martin Luther King was familiar with racism and discrimination, and he was familiar with how tough it is to break up the established order of the day, and that was by, you know, white supremacists who basically created harm to all in the black community for the most part. And so he created something called the C Project.

The C Project was the Confrontation Project. The Confrontation Project is a non-violent project that dealt with sit-ins, marches, praying, organizing.

And so confrontational does not mean violence. I'm a non-violent person. Martin Luther King taught non-violence. And we must be about resisting, however, and we must be about educating. And we must be about trying to protect our children.

And so confrontation is being misused. And as I said, there's an attempt by the Republicans to divert attention from the fact that they are aligned with violent people. QAnon --

ACOSTA: Congresswoman --

WATERS: Yes?

ACOSTA: Congresswoman, let me just ask you, though, because as you know the judge in the Derek Chauvin case also came out strongly against your remarks. Let's listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUDGE PETER CAHILL, HENNEPIN COUNTY DISTRICT COURT: I'll give you that congresswoman waters may have given you something on appeal that may result in this whole trial being overturned. I wish elected officials would stop talking about this case, especially in a manner that is disrespectful to the rule of law and to the judicial branch and our function. A congresswoman's opinion really doesn't matter a whole lot. Anyway. So motion for mistrial is denied.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: What did you think of that? What was your response to the judge when you saw that?

WATERS: Well, he did walk it back. And as you said, he closed with a congresswoman's opinion doesn't matter. And I think he was angry. I think he may be frustrated with this case and how much world publicity is on it and all of that.

[15:10:02]

I've talked with a lot of legal scholars and lawyers, and of course, he was way off track and he knows that in fact the jurors were not in the room. The jurors have been -- had an oath not to look at television, not to read the newspapers, not to engage with people on this. And so he knows that there was no interference with the jurors.

But he was basically frustrated and angry, I believe. But I am very pleased there are those beginning to write about Judge Cahill's basic comments. And one thing I read that came from someone from CNN was that the judge was all off track and he knows that this is not the cause of an appeal.

Most of the time when you have a case like this they're going to appeal it anyway, but to say that I'm going to cause an appeal really is not credible. And whether or not they have an appeal and even if they mention my name like the judge says, my comments, whatever, don't matter anyway.

ACOSTA: Well, Congresswoman, let me ask you more about this op-ed that you wrote. You say you're non-violent while also referencing that there are right-wing members of Congress who subscribe to the views of QAnon and the Proud Boys. Do you believe that those congressional Republicans are non-violent?

WATERS: Well, no. Because what is very interesting is I am threatened to be killed very often. And so we are reporting to the Capitol Police and they are investigating all of these attempts to kill me and people are so -- not attempts but, you know, people who are calling in saying that they're going to kill me. And we don't know how close they've gotten to doing that.

But we do know this -- the Oath Keepers started to march on my office, and they organized, and they got very open about it. The police, LAPD, did stop them. And the community turned out when they learned about it. But that doesn't get written about.

Not only do I have my life threatened very often and the Oath Keepers who are threatening me but these individuals who are so brazen that they have their telephone numbers that's recorded that are threatening to kill me. We have members of Congress who carry guns.

And, you know, we had to put the machines up to make sure that everybody that was coming on the floor was basically going through the machine to determine whether or not they were carrying weapons. And so when you talk about violence --

ACOSTA: Are you saying, Congresswoman, that you're concerned about your -- I just want to --

(CROSSTALK)

WATERS: -- when you look at what happened January 6th when the domestic terrorists who were their friends broke into our Capitol and beat up police officers and caused one police death and others to be harmed. Then you know, I think people, whether they like me or not, will know that their arguments are not credible.

ACOSTA: Let me ask you this because right now, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act is stalled in the Senate. Democrats, as you know, don't have the 60 votes needed to bypass a filibuster. Are you concerned that Congress is going to miss a huge opportunity here, do you think?

WATERS: Well, I have to be concerned because you know the Republicans have basically defined themselves in what they will and won't do and how much they resist anything that has to do with taking care of the problems that we are talking about, police abuse and the targeting of black people by the police. They don't want to agree to that. And so, it's going to be difficult. It's not going to be easy.

I don't know what's going to happen. But I know this -- that black mothers and fathers have got to do everything that they can to protect their children. We can't sleep at night. We worry about them. The whole community is upset about it.

And so, we've got to work and we've got to deal with this issue. Protesting is guaranteed to us, the freedom of speech by the Constitution of the United States of America. And so when you talk about protest and confrontation you're not talking about hurting anybody. You're talking about educating. You're talking about --

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ACOSTA: What about these -- what about some of these state bills, congresswoman? You're seeing some of these --

WATERS: I beg your pardon?

ACOSTA: You're seeing some of these bills in states across the country, places like Oklahoma and Florida, where they're trying to place restrictions on protesting. They're calling them anti-riot bills and so on. Have you seen this? And what is your response to some of these bills?

(CROSSTALK) WATERS: Yes. I'm beginning to take a look at this, and I am remembering as I started looking at this that they're saying that if a car plows into a crowd and kills somebody that it depends on what that somebody was doing, that they may not be held accountable for that.

[15:15:04]

And I don't know the exact words. But that legislation that they're producing is outrageous. It is unconstitutional. But it is similar to what they're doing on voting rights. We're under attack on voting rights with, you know, all of these states that have Republican governors, et cetera.

They are basically trying to take away our voting rights. It is voter suppression. That cannot be denied.

In addition to that, now you have an attempt to stop protesting and First Amendment rights. The black communities are under siege by these right-wing Republicans. The KKK, the QAnon, the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, these are domestic terrorists. And they are targeting us in so many ways. And unfortunately, our young people are dying and we just have to keep talking. We have to keep acting.

ACOSTA: All right. And we know you will. Congresswoman Maxine Waters, thanks for coming in. We appreciate your time. We hope to have you on again soon. We appreciate it.

WATERS: Thank you so very much for having me.

ACOSTA: All right. Thank you.

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