Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California) has lashed out at US President Donald Trump again, this time referring to him as “[Vladimir] Putin’s apprentice” and claiming she knows about a secret deal between Trump and the Russian president.

Speaking on MSNBC’s AM Joy show on Sunday, the California congresswoman said that she has been trying to warn the American public for months that Trump is “dangerous” and “in bed with Putin.”

Waters said that Trump was looking to use Russia as his new “financial playground” because many American banks will no longer do business with him. Waters also claimed that Trump and his “Kremlin clan” of associates had a special arrangement with Putin to lift US sanctions on Russia in gratitude for alleged Russian efforts to help Trump win the 2016 presidential election.

Trump “has promised [Putin] that once he was elected, he would get those sanctions lifted,” she said. “I think he is Putin’s apprentice. He’s been under his tutelage for a long time now.”

I think Trump is Putin's apprentice https://t.co/PN7lXVbkkk via @msnbc — Maxine Waters (@RepMaxineWaters) July 22, 2018

Waters also criticized Republicans for failing to condemn the president for inviting Putin to the White House later this year.

“[Republicans] have no guts. They have no courage. They're not standing up for America. I dare them to talk about how patriotic they are given what they are allowing this president to do,” she said.

Waters, who represents California’s 43rd congressional district, has emerged as one of the most vocal critics of Trump, repeatedly calling for his impeachment. She was recently accused of inciting “mob violence” and faced criticism from both sides of the aisle after she encouraged Americans to harass members of the Trump administration if they happened to encounter them in public.

READ MORE: Maxine Waters: ‘Hustler of hate’ or Democratic nominee in 2020?

She has refused to back down in the face of controversy, however, and said she was “blessed with courage” and the strength she needs to not be “intimidated by the likes of Donald Trump.”

Trump has previously responded to attacks from Waters by calling her an “extraordinarily low IQ person” and the “face of the Democrat Party.”

Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has become, together with Nancy Pelosi, the Face of the Democrat Party. She has just called for harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for Max! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 25, 2018

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