California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters is a bully even when she’s not chairing the House Financial Services Committee, but during a heated committee hearing Tuesday, one of her victims got fed up.
The trouble started for Waters when Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who’d spent the afternoon being grilled by Democrats, tried to remind Waters that the hearing was supposed to end at 5:15 p.m. so Mnuchin could make a scheduled meeting with an official from the Bahrain government, according to Fox News.
It didn’t end well — especially not for Waters.
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“I’ve sat here for over three hours and 15 minutes, I’ve told you I’ll come back,” Mnuchin said. “I just don’t believe we’re sitting here negotiating when I come back. We’ll follow up with your office. How long would you like me to come back for next time? I’ve told I’ll accommodate you.”
Waters, who chairs the Financial Services Committee, had a particularly arrogant and cold response.
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“This is a new way and it’s a new day. And it’s a new chair. And I have the gavel at this point. If you wish to leave, you may,” Waters said.
Check out the clash here.
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Rep. Maxine Waters: “This is a new way and it’s a new day. And it’s a new chair. And I have the gavel.”
WATCH: Treasury Sec. Mnuchin, Maxine Waters get into fiery exchange over length of hearing. https://t.co/4KEJIcVlO7 pic.twitter.com/pIktWZkl57
— The Hill (@thehill) April 10, 2019
Mnuchin asked Waters to clarify if the hearing was dismissed, but Waters refused to directly answer Mnuchin’s question and formally dismiss the hearing.
“If you’d wish to keep me here so that I don’t have my important meeting and continue to grill me, then we can do that. I will cancel my meeting and I will not be back here,” Mnuchin said. “I will be very clear if that’s the way you’d like to have this relationship.”
“The secretary has agreed to stay to hear all of the rest of the members,” Waters responded, addressing the other members of the committee. She then returned to addressing Mnuch. “Please cancel your meeting and respect our time.”
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Mnuchin and Waters then argued about whether or not the chairwoman was ordering Mnuchin to stay.
Mnuchin, who became visibly frustrated with Waters’ arrogant attitude, finally began giving orders himself.
“Please dismiss everybody. I believe you’re supposed to take the gavel and bang it,” Mnuchin said.
Waters didn’t take that well at all.
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“Please do not instruct me as to how I am to conduct this committee,” Waters replied.
No one came out of this confrontation looking good, but Waters clearly came off worse.
Her poisonous relationship with the Trump White House goes deeper than her recurring calls to impeach President Donald Trump.
This is the woman who, like a true street bully, infamously urged supporters last summer to form angry mobs around members of Trump’s cabinet in public and “push back on them.”
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“If you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you cause a crowd, and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome — anymore, anywhere.”
Maxine Waters calls for attacks on Trump administration: “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.” pic.twitter.com/jMV7wk48wM
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) June 24, 2018
But the bully who chairs the House Financial Services Committee ran into a treasury secretary Tuesday who was too fed up to play the role of her victim.
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And she didn’t handle it well at all.
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