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Arizona US Rep. Andy Biggs files motion to censure Rep. Maxine Waters

June 26, 2018

PHOENIX – U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Arizona) has filed a motion to censure Rep. Maxine Waters over her suggestion that members of the Trump administration should be confronted in public.

Biggs was responding to comments the California Democrat made during a rally against President Donald Trump's immigration policy in Los Angeles over the weekend.

Waters cited a recent incident in which White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders was refused service in a Virginia restaurant.

"And 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," Waters said during the rally. "And you push back on them. And you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere."

The comments have drawn condemnation from both sides of the aisle. Biggs said it violated the House Code of Official Conduct.

"She said surround these people while they're getting gas," Biggs told KTAR News 92.3 FM's Arizona Morning News on Tuesday. "Yell at them when they're out to eat. Hassle them wherever you can. Keep them awake in their home 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

"That's how you get violence in this country, is that kind of inflammatory comments, rhetoric."

The Sanders incident came days after Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was taunted while eating at a Mexican restaurant in Washington.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-New York) said Monday from the Senate floor that his party should fight back by winning elections.

"That is a far more productive way to channel the legitimate frustrations with this president's policies than with harassing members of his administration," he said.

In a tweet, Trump responded by calling Waters "an extraordinarily low IQ person."

Waters said her words were being misrepresented.

"I believe in peaceful, very peaceful protests," she told reporters on Capitol Hill on Monday, according to CNN. "I have not called for the harm of anybody. This president has lied again when he's saying that I've called for harm."