Jacob Wasserman, one of TMZ’s new on-the-ground producers in Washington, DC, caught up with Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) on her way into the U.S. Capitol on Thursday and asked the 87-year-old if Congress needs age limits.

“Congresswoman, Jacob with TMZ. How are you?” Wasserman began.

“I’m fine,” replied Waters.

Wasserman continued, “Good to see you. I have a question. I want to ask you something as a whiny Gen Z-er myself. Some people in my generation look at our leaders and think, ‘You know what? Some of these people are too old.’ But as a spry 87-year-old, I just saw you talk at the Working Families press conference. What do you say to people in my generation who think, “Okay, some of these leaders are too old, and we need to do something about it?”

Waters replied, “I usually don’t do press conferences while I’m walking, but let me just say that the way people should think about elected officials is, ‘What do they do? What can you document? What can you give them credit for? What can you criticize them for?’ If you do what it takes to evaluate, then you can decide.”

“Understood, so we shouldn’t judge people based on their age, but rather on what they do for the people,” Wasserman pressed.

Waters added, “Performance and effectiveness.”

“Got it. So someone like President Trump, who’s about to turn 80 years old—I mean, that’s the president, kind of different than maybe someone serving in Congress. Is that—” Wasserman added as Waters quipped, “Don’t have to ask me about Trump. You know what I think about him.”

“Is that considered a little too old, though—an 80-year-old president? I mean, a lot of people had issues with Biden’s age. What do you think?” Wasserman pressed.
“The President of the United States is destroying our democracy. He’s made unkept promises. He is enriching himself and his family with cryptocurrency,” Waters replied, adding:

He has lied to us, and even now, when he was talking about Iran, he said he didn’t have time to think about what is going on with financing and financial services in the United States of America. And so this is a president who is absolutely committed to empowering himself and using the power of the executive—the highest executive of the land, the President of the United States of America. And the people are beginning to understand that.

I think some people are having buyer’s remorse, and we see it in the polls. In the final analysis, it is the people who will finally determine that this president is dangerous and divisive. And we’ve got to do everything that we can to make sure we overcome much of what he’s trying to do. We’ve got to fight, fight, fight!

Wasserman pivoted back to his line of questioning, “Should there be an age limit to be president?”

Waters replied, “Let me just say this: people should be evaluated and thought of in terms of what they do. If you have effective leaders, if you have fighters, if you have those who have demonstrated—if you have those who are documented, what they care about—that’s the only thing that matters.”

“So if you have a hundred-year-old fighter, they should still be in office, hypothetically?” Wasserman followed up.

“The people should evaluate who should be in office with their vote, and that’s it,” Waters concluded.

Wasserman ended it there, “All right. Thank you so much, Congresswoman.”

Watch the clip above TMZ.

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