Hello, come in, sit down. United States Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California will read you now.
Honey, Maxine Waters is not the one. You may have been told that she is the one but you were lied to. She would like to cordially invite you to not come for her unless she sends for you.
The Representative from California’s 43rd District has been on a grand reading tour of D.C. and I am living for it. She doesn’t care who you are—member of the press, president-elect, young pope, Alexander Hamilton—she’s going to let you have it. She is going to take you down a peg. There are no pegs left in Washington. The town is peg deficient.
I’m tempted to elect Congresswoman Waters as this week’s Shade Bae, but shade is subtle. Waters doesn’t have time for subtlety. Waters knows that desperate times call for shadier measures. She is reading this town for filth.
Dr. Carla Hayden may be the Librarian of Congress, but Congresswoman Maxine Waters has read everything in that building, honey.
Her whole face says, “You tried it.” Her lipstick shade is “Shade.”
Waters’ reading tour began last week at the world’s quickest and sassiest press conference.
Y’all it is 21 seconds long and yet it will give you your entire and complete life.
Here’s the whole transcript:
Rep. Waters: [already over it] Yes?… Can I help you? What do you want?
Okay, we have to pause here for a praise break. She walks into a press conference, stands in front of a set of microphones, and then has the nerve to get salty. I live. She’s treating the press like they’re a bunch of vacuum cleaner salespeople who barged into her living room in the middle of Days of Our Lives. Like sands through the hourglass, this is a read of your life.
Okay, back to the press conference:
Rep. Waters: [stares impassively at the room. Dares anyone to speak. Gives the fakest smile she can muster just so you know she’s over this even though it just began three seconds ago.]
Reporter: How did it go today?
Rep. Waters: It went fine.
Y’all. How are you going to lead with “How did it go today?” like Rep. Waters is a sullen teenager who tried out for the soccer team this afternoon? How did it go today? You need to play her in better than that. How did it go today? I don’t know. Fine. We’re three minutes to doomsday but there was soft serve in the cafeteria so I’d give it a B+. How are you? How’s your cholesterol level?
Okay, next question:
Reporter: Can you tell us anything about the discussion in the—
Rep. Waters: No, it’s classified and we can’t tell you anything. All I can tell you is the FBI director has no credibility.
AND THEN SHE THROWS THE WHOLE PRESS CONFERENCE IN THE GARBAGE AND WALKS AWAY.
She didn’t even need to drop the mic. She dropped the whole room. She shows up to a press conference, acts like it’s the biggest inconvenience she’s ever had to endure, and then says that she can’t say anything…except that the director of the FBI has no credibility. Honey, as far as reads go this is Infinite Jest. I would leave the room, too. It’s no wonder the video cut off abruptly; everybody probably just ran screaming into the streets, scalded by the severity of that burn.
“Boyd thinks he can still fit into that wool sweater from 1971 but he is mistaken. Do you hear that? It’s the lambs screaming.”
“Why haven’t your parents painted this house? Are they in foreclosure?”
“I gotta go. This macaroni and cheese is nasty and I need to stop by Popeye’s on the way home to cleanse my palate.”
Rep. Waters’ parade of shade continued when she decided to go in on the president-elect and his forthcoming inauguration.
Rep. Maxine Waters shows up for an interview with Tamron Hall, which, I presume, began with Waters saying, “Yes? Can I help you? What do you want?” She then goes all the way in for 60 whole seconds. If this was a movie it would be called Journey to the Center of the Read and Meryl Streep would play Waters.
The whole thing reaches its peak when she says of the president-elect, “I don’t honor him. I don’t respect him. And I don’t want to be involved with him.”
I don’t want to be involved with him!
Y’all, that sentence is so hot my entire skull just burst into flames. I am now Marvel superhero Ghost Reader. And Maxine Waters is Thor because she brought down the hammer. She is a congresswoman in the United States and she’s like, “The president is a bugaboo. He’s bugging what? He’s bugging who? He’s bugging me and don’t you see that ain’t cool.”
You can’t out-read this woman. She is 78 years old (y’all when I tell you it don’t crack…) and she’s over it. All of it.
When Maxine Waters has a word for you, you need to just bow down. And then get back up and get out because she’s already left the room.
Follow R. Eric Thomas on Twitter.
