Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee told The Daily Beast this week that he found the leak of President Trump’s phone call transcripts with foreign leaders “disgraceful.” But Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) had no problem with it.
Asked on The View Friday morning if she was “disturbed” at all by the apparently illegal leak of confidential conversations Trump had with the presidents of Mexico and Australia during his first week in office, Waters said, “No, not at all. I am so glad they are telling us what’s going on.”
“I need to hear these conversations,” Waters continued to applause from the audience. “Unfortunately, this is his problem,” she said of Trump. “He is in a White House where he’s got people working for him who don’t believe in him, don’t like what he’s doing, and they’re trying to tell the American public something.”
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“They’re not leakers as much as whistleblowers,” Joy Behar agreed.
When co-host Paula Faris pushed back, saying “America loses” when the president cannot have a “candid” talk with foreign leaders, Waters said she believes Mexico is happy that the president’s statements about the border wall were made public.
“He tried to convince the [Mexican] president that somehow he should not be talking about the fact that they are not going to fund this wall,” Waters said. “And he’s trying to convince him to go along with him to do harm to his country.”
“And isn’t it good that his supporters hear that?” Behar asked. “They’ve been believing all the lies about building the wall, now he knows he was lying.”
In his phone call with Mexican President Peña Nieto, Trump admitted, “Believe it or not, this is the least important thing that we are talking about, but politically this might be the most important to talk about.”
“Let me tell you, the leadership starts at the top,” Waters said, echoing Anthony Scaramucci’s infamous Italian expression. “And it is this president that his own people have no confidence in. They are undermining him because they want to see him stop. They want us to do something. Not every president would be treated this way. This man has no values. He lies. They know it. And he’s the danger and they want us to do something about it.”
Earlier on Friday, Waters told Morning Joe that President Trump is “the most deplorable person I've ever met in my life” adding that she had “no hopes” that his new chief of staff, General John Kelly would be able to change that.
