Maxine Waters says Trump and his supporters don't want Blacks to 'rise to any level of influence and power'
Maxine Waters has railed against President Donald J. Trump's pardon of Roger Stone and accused the commander-in-chief and his supporters of believing it was their "right" to ensure Black Americans didn't have power in the United States. Speaking to MSNBC host Joy Reid on Sunday, the California congresswoman compared the president's commutation of Stone's 40-month sentence to the case of Kalief Browder, who committed suicide in June 2015 after spending three years in New York's Rikers Island without trial. Furthermore, she said both Trump and his supporters would “ensure that blacks and people of color and others do not rise to any level of influence and power.”
“Roger Stone found guilty by a jury on seven federal criminal counts, no jail time," Reid began. "Kalief Browder, accused of stealing a backpack couldn’t post bail, spent three years at Rikers Island awaiting trial, ultimately committed suicide after release. We have two justice systems in our country. This is the reason that the Black Lives Matter movement has taken hold, that there are two systems of justice for the rich, the poor, the white, the Black."
"What do you make of those who are still to this day criticizing Black Lives Matter, such as Senator Kelly Loeffler? What do you make of that, that they are still doing that?” the MSNBC host asked Waters.
"[The Senate Republicans] have literally been intimidated, they've been complicit, they've allowed this president to defy us, the Constitution and everything else. This brazenness, in-your-face, this is the way the president has defined himself and Roger Stone is laughing at all of us," Waters said Sunday on AM Joy.
"I think you said it earlier today when you talked about this need for Trump and those who support him to want to have absolute power and to believe that it is their right and their responsibility to ensure that Blacks and people of color and others do not rise to any level of influence and power, significant that would cause them not to be in total charge of the country," she continued.
Waters said the president's pardon of Stone was irrefutable evidence of circular corruption within the White House. "That young man [Browder] is typical of so many young Black men and women who have been sent to jail, who have been convicted, who have served long sentences," she added. "This justice system is broken. It has never really been in our favor, and it has basically been responsible for ensuring that we could never ever get beyond this suppression and this oppression that has been forced upon us for so many years."
Waters said those who criticize Black Lives Matter "can continue to do that, but I want to tell you the time has come now where we are joined by so many others who really were not there for us in the past."
"You saw it in all of the protests where you had Whites and Blacks and Asians and old and young, all saying something is wrong with this country. Something is wrong with our criminal justice system. Something is wrong with our policing. It is racism," she added.