Angela Rye had a message for anyone who thought that Rep. Maxine Waters does not have a strong support system behind her.
The CNN commentator took a moment during the Sister Love panel on the 2018 ESSENCE Festival Empowerment Stage, in which Waters also participated, to ask the audience of Black women to rally behind Waters.
“We stand with Maxine,” she instructed the crowd to chant.
The congresswoman has been on the receiving end of death threats after calling for the public to “push back” on the Trump administration’s zero tolerance immigration policy that separates families.
President Donald Trump also directly threatened Waters on Twitter, while the top Democratic leadership seemingly refused to come to her defense.
“We want to make an illustrative point,” Rye told the audience while asking them to hold hands. “And this is what we’re going to say to Chuck to Nancy and to Donald (Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and President Donald Trump).”
In a recent panel discussion, Rye called the recent criticism and death threats aimed at Waters as a result of her being a Black woman.
“It has everything to do with the fact that this Black woman is intimidating to some people who can’t handle the truth,” she said during a CNN panel discussion Thursday with Steve Cortes of the Trump re-election Advisory Council. “It has everything to do with race.”
