The nation’s newspapers say partisanship has run amok in Washington. “We need bridge builders,” they say. “The president’s comments are inflammatory,” they opine. So, you would think, in choosing someone to honor for the National Leadership Award, the National Newspaper Publishers Association would pick someone who meets their highest ideals for their greatest honor, unless they have a political agenda behind their choice.
The association, made up large publications down to its smallest local newspapers made their choice for the award and it is Rep. Maxine Waters–the firebrand from whom even some liberal Democrats are distancing themselves.
Waters used her acceptance speech to disparage the President and call for his impeachment in front of the media moguls. Something she has been doing since November 2016.
“It is no secret… the president doesn’t like me and I don’t like him either,” said Waters, D-Calif., as executives laughed.
“I want you to know that I didn’t just get started. I knew that this president should not be in the White House when I saw him, and the way that he conducted himself in the primary campaign,” Waters continued.
Waters and Trump have taken shots at one another for months, with Waters repeatedly calling for Trump’s impeachment. In June, Waters encouraged protesters to confront Trump Cabinet members publicly and harass them over the administration’s policies. Radical individuals across the nation took her words as call to arms and began harassing and intimidating everyone from kids wearing Make America Great Again hats in restaurants to administration officials arriving at their private residences with their small children in tow.
Meanwhile, the president has repeatedly called out Waters and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, both California Democrats, and sought to cast them as the face of the party for their obstruction on issues that would normally bring both democrats and republicans together.
“The face of the Democrats is now Maxine Waters who, together with Nancy Pelosi, have established a fine leadership team,” Trump joked in June.
“No, I don’t like him. Yes, I have worked against him. No, I didn’t go to his inauguration. No, I didn’t go to his State of the Union. No, I do not go to the White House. No, I do not engage with him,” Waters said as the crowd erupted with applause. “All I want for him and about him is to be impeached and get him out of the White House.”
But those that think Trump leaving and Pence taking over would bring civility and peace back to the nations political landscape might think again.
Waters admitted that she would “go after” Vice President Pence if Trump were to be removed from office.
“We’re the patriots of this country,” she told the crowd before declaring the Republicans are “scared” of President Trump.