Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said Thursday that President Donald Trump “really does promote a lot of violence” after police intercepted a mail bomb on its way to her office.
"I think the president of United States should take responsibility for the kind of violence that we are seeing for the first time in different ways," Waters said in an interview with Blavity, the day after police found multiple bombs targeting prominent Democrats and others critical of Trump.
"I think the president of the United States has been dog-whistling to his constituency, making them believe that their problems are caused by those people over there. And I think they are acting in a way that they think the president wants them to do and the way he wants them to act."
She added that Trump “in his own way really does promote a lot of violence.”
Trump notably said that Montana Rep. Greg Gianforte, who pled guilty to assaulting a reporter earlier this year, was “my kind of guy.”
In response to the bomb threat on Wednesday, Waters said, "We must not be intimidated to the point that we stop advocating and protesting for justice.”
"I don’t know whether the bombs are real or not, but we should not crawl under the bed, close the doors, not go out, be afraid to go to rallies," she continued. "We have to keep to doing what we’re doing in order to make this country right; that’s what I intend to do, and as the young people say, 'I ain’t scared.'"