Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) promoted a conspiracy theory on Wednesday evening during an MSNBC interview, suggesting without evidence that President Donald Trump was deploying federal officers to cities across the U.S. as a “trial run” for deploying “his military” against Americans if he does not win re-election in November.
Waters, who has promoted partisan conspiracy theories involving Trump in the past, responded to the Department of Homeland Security’s deployment of federal agents to Portland by claiming “this is what you see in countries where you have dictators, in Third World countries with dictators, who have paramilitary that they can call up against the people any time they want.”
“As a matter of fact, it has been suggested that this is a trial run of the President of the United States who may be organizing to not accept what happens when we have the election if he’s not elected,” Waters claimed. “Is he going to pull out his military? Is he going to engage us? He has already alluded to there may be a civil war if he’s not re-elected. This is dangerous, we are trying to find out more about it.”
Video and transcript below:
.@RepMaxineWaters on DHS sending agents to Portland as riots continue: "As a matter of fact, it has been suggested that this is a trial run by the president of the United States who may be organizing to not accept what happens when we have the election if he’s not elected." pic.twitter.com/54a2DHDx7l
— Julio Rosas (@Julio_Rosas11) July 22, 2020
REP. MAXINE WATERS (D-CA): The people of this country had better be worried about what we’re seeing in Portland. We have these paramilitary police officers or whomever they are, they’re federal offices or agents of some kind that’s been organized by the president of the United States. He did not contact the local mayors. He did not contact the governors. He just sent them in. Who are these people? Why do they have these kind of uniforms on where they cannot be identified? We don’t know their names; we don’t have anything that identifies them. They have unmarked cars; they’ve pulling people off the street and throwing them into these cars. I want to tell you, Joy, this is what you see in countries where you have dictators, in Third World countries with dictators who have paramilitary that they can call up against the people any time they want. As a matter of fact, it has been suggested that this is a trial run of the President of the United States who may be organizing to not accept what happens when we have the election if he’s not elected. Is he going to pull out his military? Is he going to engage us? He has already alluded to there may be a civil war if he’s not re-elected. This is dangerous; we are trying to find out more about it. We have sent up information, you know, to the FBI, everyplace, asking all of these questions about who are these people. Where did they come from? Who’s paying them, and why’s it being done in secret?
MSNBC HOST JOY REID: Yeah, I think those are the questions a lot of people are asking around the country this evening.