EPA chief Pruitt becomes latest Trump official to be harassed in a restaurant
EPA head Scott Pruitt has become the latest Trump official harassed by the #resistance in a restaurant, a week after Rep. Maxine Waters called for Democrats to “create a crowd and push back” against Trump staff in public places.
Pruitt, who leads the Environmental Protection Agency, was dining in a Washington DC restaurant on Monday, when he was approached by teacher Kirstin Mink and her two-year-old son. Mink then took Pruitt to task on his environmental record, and posted the video on Facebook.
“I just wanted to urge you to resign, because of what you’re doing to the environment in our country,” Mink told Pruitt. Mink read the EPA chief a list of his supposed wrongdoings, and once again asked him to resign “before your scandals push you out.”
Pruitt “should not be able to go out in public without hearing from the citizens he’s hurting,” read Mink’s Facebook post. She also wrote that Pruitt “fled the restaurant” after their encounter, despite the fact that his plate was covered with napkins in the video – a sign that he had finished his meal.
A spokesman for Pruitt told the New York Post that Pruitt respectfully listened to Mink’s speech, before thanking her and leaving for a briefing at EPA headquarters.
According to her Facebook page, Mink is a 33-year-old sixth-grade teacher at Sidwell Friends School, where former presidents Obama, Clinton, and Nixon sent their children. She is also a seasoned activist, and told the Post that she was arrested at an immigration protest the week before.
Trump’s immigration policies have galvanized the Democrat #resistance, and the battle against Trump is being fought in restaurants around the nation’s capital. Two weeks ago, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders was booted out of a Virginia restaurant for her politics, and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was jeered and ran out of another DC eatery by protesters chanting “shame!”
More disturbingly, since Sanders and Nielsen were confronted as they dined, a Department of Homeland Security official found an animal carcass left on his porch, à la ‘The Godfather’, and Antifa activists published a database of around 1,600 Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees, which included their names, photos, addresses, and children’s names.
Amid the rising tide of Democrat anger, Rep. Maxine Waters threw gasoline on the fire when she told a Los Angeles rally “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 and you push back on them, and you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere.”
Waters’ comments were criticized by both the left and the right. President Trump called Waters “an extraordinarily low IQ person,” and “the unhinged face of the Democrat party,” while establishment Democrats joined Republicans in calling for civility and calm.
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
Progressive icon Bernie Sanders waded in last Wednesday to warn Democrats to take out their anger in a “constructive way,” using the ballot box instead of bullying tactics.
"I’m not a great fan of shouting down people or being rude to people," Senator Sanders told MSNBC, distancing himself from Waters’ rhetoric. “As I’ve said before, yeah, I think people have the right to go into a restaurant and have dinner.”
Sanders’ words appear to have been lost on Mink, who told the Post that she “literally just saw him and said you are the man who is ruining the future, for the children, for the next generation,” adding that she decided to speak up not as an activist, but as a “mom and citizen.”
Meanwhile, Republicans are banking on turning public harassment of Trump officials into votes in the November midterm election. In a new campaign video released by the party last week, images of burning cars and black-clad Antifa protesters are accompanied by clips of celebrities calling for Trump’s assassination, and of Waters whipping up her followers.
The video, titled ‘Unhinged’, is already among the GOP’s most viewed videos on the party’s YouTube channel.
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