In a humiliating moment, Maxine Waters stumbled over her words to an extreme degree, botching a basic statement and leading conservatives to react uproariously online after the 86-year-old congresswoman called The Wall Street Journal “The Hall Street Journal.”
For context, in a House Financial Services Committee Hearing on May 7, 2025, Rep Waters (D-CA) started reading her prepared remarks and quickly began fumbling, tripping over her words multiple times while sounding entirely incoherent, leading up to a now-viral moment where the aging politician called The Wall Street Journal “The Hall Street Journal.”
During her statement, Waters attempted to portray the Trump Administration’s impact on the economy in a negative light, saying, “In the first quarter since Trump took office, the United States economy shrank, with our gross des…domestic project…product…decreasing by 0.3 percent.” Clearly having trouble getting the words out, she added, “We are falling behind while Canada, Europe, and China are racing ahead.”
In the written version of Rep. Waters’ prepared statement, which was published by the Democrats’ U.S. Committee on Financial Services page, the congresswoman wrote, “Mr. Bessent, you are also the face of what the Wall Street Journal has described as ‘the dumbest trade war in history.’ As a result of this stupidity, U.S. stock markets have experienced the worst first 100 days of any presidential term in more than fifty years.”
However, when Rep. Waters made these comments on the House floor, she completely flopped before spiraling into an anti-Trump tirade, saying, “The Hall Street Journal” and going on to add, “America’s CEOs are sounding the alarm of what’s to come: empty shelves and higher prices that the American consumer will pay. Companies are already running out of inventory, port volume is down, and small businesses are warning that they will not survive this.”
Furthermore, Rep. Waters was unrelenting in her criticism of the Trump Administration, turning her attention to DOGE and saying, “The American people also deserve to know why you handed Elon Musk and his DOGE minions access to Treasury’s payment systems and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s database. Today, you need to tell the American people why you’re dismantling agencies that protect consumers from financial fraud and abuse, and weakening ones meant to support the small businesses struggling under the weight of your policies.”
When conservative commentator Adam Carolla shared the clip of Waters tripping over her words on X, he pulled no punches, saying, “She’s 86 years old but speaks like a third grader doing a book report they forgot about that morning.” In response, commenters had some hilarious takes, with user Steve McGuire saying, “I am thinking about subscribing to the Hall Street Journal,” and another commenter adding, “Well yeah, it’s because her staffers almost assuredly wrote that, and she likely had just been given it before the hearing.”
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In addition, there were countless other humorous responses to Rep. Waters’ embarrassing flub in the comments section, including user Matt Beers’ quip, “Maxine Waters used to be the dumbest person in Congress, but then Jasmine Crockett was elected.” Another commenter added, “Why do they always sound like they’re doing a cold reading of a script that was just handed to them? And why would I not be surprised if this were the case?”
Watch the humiliating clip:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video