Rep. Maxine Waters made clear she has no plans to reach across the aisle to work with Donald Trump, vowing on Monday to fight the president-elect “every inch of the way.”

The California Democrat told MSNBC corespondent Jacob Soboroff that her party has a problem of bending over backward to work with Republicans.

“I tell you, that has been a problem in my party,” Mrs. Waters said. “That when we’re in power, we’re nice. We bend over backwards to work with people. Trump has stepped on everybody. He has no respect for his own colleagues, let alone those on the opposite side of the aisle.

“He’s called names, he’s lied. He’s done everything to show that he doesn’t have good values and he can’t be trusted,” she continued. “Why should we work with someone that we can’t trust? He’ll tell you one thing today and another thing tomorrow. As a matter of fact, those people who voted for [him] ought to be really concerned about the fact that he has already backpedaled on some of the promises he made.

“I have no intention of pretending everything is all right, that we’re going to work together,” she added.

Mrs. Waters said she has a duty to fight Mr. Trump on his campaign promise to repeal some of the reforms that came about after the 2008 financial crisis.

“I’ve been working hard to try and implement Dodd-Frank reforms. We went through a terrible crisis in 2008. Many people lost their homes; the banks got away with murder,” she said.

“As a ranking member of the Financial Services Committee, where he said he’s going to bring down Dodd-Frank and he’s going to get rid of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, I’m going to fight him every inch of the way,” she said.

Mr. Soboroff asked the congresswoman if she would be willing to meet with Mr. Trump to try and find some common ground.

“Oh no, I won’t go,” Mrs. Waters responded. “I’m not going to sit down with him. I’m not going to go. I’m not going to pretend. Enough pretending. This business of calling names and lying and retreating on your promises, etc. Why should I trust him to be any different with me?

“No, I don’t trust him. I don’t believe him,” she said. “I have no intentions of sitting down with him. I’m going to fight him every inch of the way, and I’m going to help show the American people that they, too, cannot trust him.”

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