- Rep. Maxine Waters said Rep. Matt Gaetz “needs to shut up” after he spoke about the Capitol insurrection.
- Gaetz said he was proud of the work Republicans did on January 6.
- The Florida congressman said some people made “legitimate arguments about election integrity” on January 6.
Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California had scathing remarks for Rep. Matt Gaetz after he made reflecting on the Capitol insurrection.
“We’re ashamed of nothing. We’re proud of the work that we did on January 6 to make legitimate arguments about election integrity,” Gaetz said about the GOP on Steve Bannon’s radio talk show.
“We’re actually going to walk the grounds that patriotic Americans walked from the White House to the Capitol who had no intent of breaking the law or doing violence,” Gaetz, a Republican from Florida, said alongside a nodding Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green.
Waters said on MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show” Gaetz’s comments were “absolutely outrageous.”
“The world watched what happened, and for them to try and rewrite history and to tell people ‘don’t believe your lying eyes’ is absolutely outrageous,” said Waters, who added that Gaetz “better be concerned” about what’s happening in his sex-trafficking investigation.
—The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart (@TheSundayShow) January 9, 2022
“To get in our faces and talk about they had no intent of hurting anybody when we’ve got five of our Capitol police officers who are dead, 150 of them who have been harmed,” Waters continued. “We can’t let them get away with it.”
A Senate report found that five officers who served at the Capitol died in the days and weeks after the insurrection, the New York Times reported. The Times also reported that around 140 police officers were injured in the events.
Some 738 people have been charged with crimes in connection to the Capitol insurrection, and 171 rioters have pleaded guilty.
Waters said on MSNBC that it is not possible to work with some Republicans.
“I want my party to rise to this occasion and not try and think that somehow we are going to be able to work something out with them. They have defined themselves as liars, people with no integrity, and they are intent on protecting Trump, and they’re all afraid of him,” Waters said.
“They are not representing even their constituents, and so Gaetz needs to shut up,” she added.
