House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi seemingly rebuked Rep. Maxine Waters’ call for the president's opponents to confront members of the administration wherever they may be. | Alex Wong/Getty Images Pelosi appears to chide Waters over her call to confront Trump officials

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wrote online Monday that elections should be conducted in a way that "achieves unity" despite President Donald Trump's "lack of civility," in what appeared to be a gentle rebuke of Rep. Maxine Waters’ call for Trump opponents to confront members of the administration wherever they may be.

“In the crucial months ahead, we must strive to make America beautiful again. Trump’s daily lack of civility has provoked responses that are predictable but unacceptable,” Pelosi (D-Calif.) wrote on Twitter. “As we go forward, we must conduct elections in a way that achieves unity from sea to shining sea.”


Attached to Pelosi’s post was a link to a CNN article detailing Waters’ remarks, made over the weekend in a TV interview and at a rally in Los Angeles. Addressing the Trump administration policy that led to the separation of families who illegally enter the U.S., Waters said those who oppose the practice should give no quarter to the president’s Cabinet.

"Let's make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. 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 (D-Calif.), who was among the earliest lawmakers to call for the president's impeachment, said Saturday. “And you push back on them. And you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere.”

Waters’ remarks, along with a Virginia restaurant’s unwillingness over the weekend to serve White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, prompted criticism from Trump allies that opposition to the president had devolved from political discourse to personal attacks.

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The Los Angeles congresswoman’s remarks came days after protesters chanted “shame” and “end family separation” at Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen as she ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant near the White House last week. A day earlier, Nielsen had publicly defended the administration’s family separation practice.

A spokesman for Nielsen later characterized the protesters as sharing “her concern with our current immigration laws that have created a crisis on our southern border” and said the secretary “encourages all — including this group — who want to see an immigration system that works … to reach out to members of Congress and seek their support to close the terrible immigration loopholes that have made our system a mess.”