MSNBC "The Beat with Ari Melber" - Transcript Interview with Maxine Waters

Interview

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We are rejoined by Democratic Congressman Maxine Waters of California,

chair of the Financial Services Committee.

Good evening to you.

REP. MAXINE WATERS (D-CA): Hello. How are you? I`m delighted…

(CROSSTALK)

MELBER: I`m good. Thanks for asking.

WATERS: Well, I`m delighted to be with you.

(CROSSTALK)

MELBER: It`s great to have you back. I know we`re on a slight delay.

You`re keeping safe and everything?

WATERS: Yes, absolutely.

It`s a challenge, but we have to do it. And one of the things I want to do

is have all of us serve as good examples by making sure we do the social

distancing, and we`re wearing our mask, and we`re not creating large crowds

and attending large events.

MELBER: Yes, I hear you on that.

And, as a policy-maker and a leader, you are using this platform to remind

people of that.

I suppose, Congresswoman, I want to pick up where we left off in our last

conversation, because you said something that resonated with me. And I

heard some viewers, who I hear from time to time, noticed it too, which is,

for all your work, which we mentioned, you were giving credit, saying the

protesters pushed farther and got policy-makers in Congress to move more

than some of the professionals.

Now we`re in this place where you and Speaker Pelosi and others have led

this House bill. We reported on that. We`re seeing this action in various

courtrooms, including what I mentioned today, and, obviously, life goes on.

We`re not seeing all the protests to the same degree, although we continue

to report on those aspects. What do you see as the next step or phase in

this movement?

WATERS: Well, I think there are several steps to be taken.

One is, we have to really take a look at the kind of crimes that are

committed by the people that we pay to protect and serve us, and see if

they fall in the category of civil rights violations.

And I think that we have to take a look at that, because we have been

referring some of these crimes to the Department of Justice, and they have

been oftentimes rejected, or people didn`t seem to be quite sure whether or

not they were captured by the civil rights laws. And I think we have got to

pay a lot of attention to that.

The other thing that I would like to see happen, aside from what we do at

the federal level, I would like to see more pressure put on the members of

city councils and mayors. They hold the purse strings.

They`re the ones with the budgets of the police departments. They`re the

ones who determine whether or not they get raises. They`re the ones who

determine whether or not they`re paying lots of overtime, as we see in Los

Angeles.

They`re the ones who decide what the pensions are and whether or not

they`re going to embellish them, et cetera, et cetera. They have not used

their influence or their power, because they have been made to believe

that, if they do some of these things, that the police unions will organize

lots of money against them, and cause them not to be reelected.

So, the police protective leagues have had an outsized role in determining

what city council members and mayors do, and members are not willing to

cross them. They are afraid of them.

And we have got to pay attention to that power and see what we can do to

lessen that power to make sure that they cannot exert the kind of influence

they have exerted traditionally.

MELBER: Yes, it`s a really important point.

When we have covered these, I have had people ask sometimes, well, what is

exactly the holdup, particularly in perhaps more liberal districts and

communities, where you might think there was more cause for reform?

And the police unions and the police themselves sometimes are not being

overseen in a traditional way. They are negotiating and leveraging these

discussions, as you just explained.

I want to play a little bit of George Floyd -- George Floyd`s uncle, who

was at that courtroom today where they`re going through the process of

these murder charges for the killing of George Floyd. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SELWYN JONES, UNCLE OF GEORGE FLOYD: I think the more media that we have

on this case, the more resolve we will get.

And this is just absolutely insane that we all are gathered here to talk

about my nephew getting murdered by a damn madman in the middle of the

street. For what reason? Because of the color of his skin.

I`m mad at the system. The system should have had better order in place.

What was he going to do? Hell, he couldn`t get up and run. What could he

do?

And we all sat there and just watched him get brutally tortured and

murdered.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MELBER: I`m curious what you think about the balance between listening to

people affected and their voices being out there, which obviously is the

part of the reason there are charges in the first place?

And the other news I mentioned, which is that the judge -- and, in

fairness, as you know, it`s pretty standard a lot of these cases. The judge

is saying, OK, now there are charges, let the case play out. They don`t

want a lot of public commentary from the participants.

But isn`t it partly public commentary and activism that got us here?

WATERS: Absolutely.

And I want to tell you, without the kind of protests that we have seen, we

would not have so many people saying, oh, my goodness, things have got to

change. And that`s not simply black people. It`s whites and all races

saying and taking to the streets, and young people taking to the streets.

We saw everything out there. We saw Asians, we saw Indians, we saw blacks,

we saw whites, et cetera.

No, this change and this talk of change would not be happening without the

kind of protest that we have witnessed. And people don`t like protests.

They are afraid of protests. But, of course, this is what is guaranteed to

us by our Constitution that we should be able to do.

And, sometimes, all of the attention is on the violence that sometimes is

caused or some of the wreckage that`s caused by some of the protesters, but

that is minor in relationship to the numbers who are on the positive side

of this and talking about change.

And so I hear what the judge is saying, but tradition has not worked for

us. And so whether you`re talking about paying attention to police chiefs

who too are captured by the police unions, or your city council members,

who are saying that they just can`t get it done, or your mayors who are

electing these police chiefs and don`t want to be accountable to them, all

of that is tradition.

And that`s got to be done away with. And the only way it`s going to happen

is with the protests of people taking to the streets in the way that we

have witnessed.

MELBER: Well, we always learn different things from you.

I was just jotting down what you said. Tradition has not worked for us.

WATERS: That`s right.

MELBER: That is so striking, because we go to school, I don`t care whether

you`re in middle school or law school, and you learn about this.

And we have these words. And some traditions are nice, and some of our

history we can be proud of. But the notion that tradition and history when

it comes to racism and civil rights in this history is exactly what needs

to be overturned, a fitting thought for us to reflect on.

Congresswoman Waters, it`s good to see you. I hope you will come back.

WATERS: Thank you.

Well, you put it very well. I liked the way you did that. Thank you so very

much.

(LAUGHTER)

MELBER: Well, I appreciate that. I`m quoting you. We will see you again

soon, Congresswoman.

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