Family separations continue to yield an uproar from the American public in large ways, like the 600 marches in late June, and in smaller impactful ways — namely confronting President Trump’s camp during their leisure time. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Steve Bannon were both interrupted this past weekend.
In the latest interrupted meals incident, protestors from Louisville’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office made a beeline for the restaurant McConnell was in and followed him when he left, asking, “Where are the babies, Mitch”
A tweet from someone at the Bristol Bar & Grille restaurant that spotted McConnell and his wife sharing a meal sparked the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) to respond immediately by sharing the tweet and mobilizing protestors.
McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao, who serves as transportation secretary, defended her husband, asking protestors to leave him alone.
The group also chanted to vote McConnell out. McConnell supports family detention, but opposes family separation. A Trump supporter pulled up in the parking lot and asked the protestors to “Let them live their lives.”
A DSA organizer, John Cook, said as he led separate protests at an ICE facility in Wisconsin this weekend: “ICE is not a beneficial organization. It’s not a moral organization and it’s not a necessary organization for the United States in any way at all. What ICE does is nothing short of an ethnic cleansing regime.”
On the same day that McConnell was evading protestors, Bannon was perusing a bookstore in Richmond, Va., his hometown, when an unidentified woman confronted him, calling him a “piece of trash.” The Black Swan Books store owner, Nick Cooke, called 911 and the woman left.
“We are a bookshop. Bookshops are all about ideas and tolerating different opinions and not about verbally assaulting somebody, which is what was happening,” Cooke said.
While it’s unclear why the woman approached him, Bannon has plenty of reasons for people to be upset with him.
He has made comments about “illegal aliens” and the Catholic Church being on the wrong side of the immigration debate because they “need illegal aliens to fill the churches.” He also called Trump’s comments about “both sides” being to blame for Charlottesville a “defining moment” in which Trump defended “his people.” Or maybe it’s the history of sexual assault allegations that ticked this woman off.
These incidents follow Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s meal interruption last month by protesters from the Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America at MXDC Cocina Mexicana shouting “shame” and “end family separation.”
Other recent responses to team Trump’s bigotry and classism:
Red Hen restaurant owner kicked out White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders because, according to the owner, Sanders doesn’t have values of honest, compassion and cooperation.
Last week, Scott Pruitt was confronted by a woman, Kristin Mink, carrying her child in a D.C. restaurant who told him to “resign before your scandals push you out.”
“If they don’t want to be called out in public, they shouldn’t make decisions that harm the rest of us,” Mink said on CNN.
