Democrat leaders need to step up, tell violent supporters to knock it off: Varney

Maxine Waters famously encouraged her followers to harass anyone connected to President Trump. She said: “If you see anyone in a restaurant, department store, gas station, you create a crowd. Tell them they are not welcome.”

That is exactly what the left did to two conservatives who are regulars on this program. Charlie Kirk and Candice Owens.

They walked into a café in Philadelphia. Four Antifa people were already inside. Far-left people, shock troops – they got on their phones and organized a crowd. That’s right out of Maxine Waters’ playbook: create a crowd. Within minutes they were outside shouting about Nazis. The two conservatives paid their check, walked outside and were immediately surrounded by a hostile crowd. Someone emptied a bottle of water over Charlie’s head. Others blew whistles right in Candice’s face. It was ugly. White kids screaming about white supremacy at a young black woman, and black police officers.

So here we have a member of Congress, Maxine Waters, urging violence, and the left is only too willing to oblige.

It’s time for Democrat leaders to lay down the law: step up and tell their violent supporters to knock it off. That would be the responsible thing to do. In June, Sen. Charles Schumer did say that no one should call for the harassment of political leaders, that’s not right. That’s not American, he said. He should say it again, more forcefully, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi should join in.

We’ve already seen the shooting of Republican Rep. Steve Scalise. The harassment of White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen: both women run out of restaurants. Remember last week a woman nearly deliberately runs into a car with a Trump bumper sticker.

Not only is this harassment dangerous, not only is it ugly, it also destroys civil discourse, which is at the heart of our free speech democracy.

We believe in free speech.