Rep. Waters: "I'm questioning the patriotism" of Republicans who let Trump side with Putin

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) has no time for the Republican Party’s hollow claims of patriotism — not when they can’t even bring themselves to denounce their ostensible leader’s deferential embrace of an adversarial country which attacked our very democracy.

Donald Trump appeared to willingly placate and buckle under to Russian President Vladimir Putin, proving that Putin’s KGB-honed techniques of manipulation are working out quite well on Trump — to the certain detriment of the rest of us.

On MSNBC’s AMJoy with guest host Jonathan Capehart, Waters emphatically declared that Republicans who can watch what is happening between Trump and Putin and not repudiate it have forfeited their pompous claims of patriotism.

And the Congresswoman was characteristically biting on exactly what is behind the GOP’s reticence.

“I think they are frightened, they’re afraid,” she noted, adding that “they don’t have the guts to stand up” to Trump.

And it is likely their fears of anger from Trump, and thus his support for them to be challenged in their next re-election bid, leading Republicans to let Trump “walk all over them.”

CAPEHART: You have been in Congress for many, many years, and, you know, your question of ‘Where are the patriots, where are the Republicans?’ — why don’t you think your fellow — Republicans in the Capitol, in Congress, aren’t stepping out and being full-throated in their condemnation of a president of the United States not standing up to the leader of Russia, and not defending our democratic processes here at home?

WATERS: Good question! And you know, these Republicans who think they’re more patriotic than anybody else, that somehow they wave the flag better — we’re the real patriots, we’re standing up for this country. I hate to say it, but I think they are frightened, they’re afraid, they don’t have the guts to stand up to him. They’re allowing him to walk all over them, because they think that somehow, he can come into their districts and that he can, you know, get the people organized against them in the vote in ’18.

Well, you know, the people sent them to the Congress of the United States to represent them, not to be afraid of a president who is looking more like a dictator than a president. And so I’m questioning the patriotism of all of those Republicans who are allowing this president to side with Putin, to wrap his arms around Putin, and let Putin say, ‘No, I didn’t do it, and you don’t have any proof that I did, so forget about it, let’s move on.’

It ought to be obvious to anyone in the United States — and certainly to those elected by the people to lead the nation — that Trump’s behavior toward Putin is unpatriotic and dangerous.

And if Republicans are not willing to do their job, and to fulfill their duty to protect the country, perhaps the primary challenge they so fear is exactly what they deserve.