Maxine Waters to skip the State of the Union: 'What does he have to say that I would be interested in?'
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) is the third House Democrat to announce her intent to skip President Trump's State of the Union address on Jan. 30.
"Why would I take my time to go and sit and listen to a liar?" Waters said in an appearance on MSNBC Friday evening. "Someone who lies in the face of facts, someone who can change their tune day in and day out. What does he have to say that I would be interested in?"
Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) announced his plan to boycott earlier Friday, citing Trump's reported derogatory comment about Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations; and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) said last week he would rather hear from his constituents.
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Many congressional Democrats who will attend plan to stage a silent protest in the audience. Members of the Democratic Women's Working Group will wear all black, said chair Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.), "to really continue the conversation about sexual harassment in the workplace, about disparity of salaries where people work in the same job, and also getting paid for the value of your work."
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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