Trump Escalates Rhetoric, Attacking Rep. Waters and Dems
President repeats false statement about 5,000 new immigration judges
President Donald Trump continued ratcheting up his rhetoric Monday, warning a Democratic lawmaker to “be careful what you wish for” and declaring Democrats “don’t care about crime.”
The president was on the offensive, both on Twitter and during remarks in the Oval Office, just two days after making the remarkable claim that Democrats want to open the southern border so the violent MS-13 gang can spread “all over our country.” He also over the weekend said undocumented migrants want to “infest” and “invade” the United States.
Likely responding to cable news coverage of weekend remarks made by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., suggesting people criticize and “harass” Trump administration officials they encounter in public, Trump appeared to urge his supporters to respond in kind.
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He repeated his months-old insult that Waters is “an extraordinarily low IQ person” and alleged she called for “harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement.” He then offered this cryptic message to Waters: “Be careful what you wish for Max!”
Over the weekend, Waters said the American people are going to “turn on” the Trump administration. She added “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.’”
That came after White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave the Red Hen restaurant in Northern Virginia, prompting both Sanders and Trump to criticize the owner.
The president’s ramping up of his rhetoric around immigration continued Monday as he sat in the Oval Office with the king and queen of Jordan.
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“We want strong borders and we want no crime,” he said of Republicans as he tried to make immigration a midterm issue, arguing it should help his party. “The Democrats want open borders and they don’t care about crime.”
He also uttered another false statement during his brief Oval Office comments, again alleging that some unnamed U.S. figures want to hire “5,000 people” to serve as immigration judges.
The highest figure turned up by several electronic searches is the 750 new judges proposed in a bill crafted by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday said the administration has seen multiple proposals for 5,000 new judges, but did not steer reporters to a single one.