MAXINE WATERS DEFENDS COMMENT ENCOURAGING HARASSMENT OF TRUMP OFFICIALS:

Representative Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) is defending her 2018 comments in which she encouraged her supporters to “absolutely harass” Trump administration officials over their “zero tolerance” immigration policy.

MSNBC’s Ali Velshi asked Waters on Sunday if she had ever “glorified or encouraged” violence against Republicans, as her two-year-old comments have recently resurfaced amid discussions of the increasingly dangerous partisan rhetoric in the U.S.

“As a matter of fact, if you look at the words that I used, the strongest thing I said was tell them they’re not welcome,” Waters said. “[I said] Talk to them. Tell them they’re not welcome. I didn’t say go and fight. I didn’t say anybody was going to have any violence. And so they can’t make that stick.”

However, in 2018, after then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and former press secretary Sarah Sanders were confronted with their families in public over family separation at the border, Waters encouraged more of the same.

“They’re not going to be able to go to a restaurant, they’re not going to be able to stop at a gas station, they’re not going to be able to shop at a department store,” she said.

She added: “The people are going to turn on them, they’re going to protest, they’re going to absolutely harass them.”

But why defend language that Democratic Party house organ “Politifact” claims she never said?