(RNN) – A small group of students confronted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, in Washington on Monday night in video that has circulated on social media.
It comes amid a small spate of similar instances, in which Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was heckled inside a DC restaurant and Press Secretary Sarah Sanders was asked to leave a restaurant in Virginia.
In the video, a group of six young men approach McConnell and Chao as they exit a building where social media posts say a Georgetown University event was being held.
The most vocal of the protesters can be heard asking repeatedly, “Why are you separating families?” while Chao rebuts him, asking, “Why don’t you leave my husband alone?” a number of times.
McConnell appears to enter the waiting vehicle without interacting with the protesters.
As Chao begins to leave, the same protester repeatedly yells, “How does he sleep at night?”
A group of protesters confronts Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao with @ProPublica’s audio of children separated from their families at the border while leaving a @Georgetown event. pic.twitter.com/jRKHKBeFpC
— Jesus Rodriguez (@jesusrodriguezb) June 26, 2018
We confronted @SenateMajLdr and @SecElaineChao with @ProPublica audio of children separated from their families at the border while leaving a @Georgetown event. We must #AbolishICE & #AbolishCBP! #FreedomforImmigrants pic.twitter.com/ljv70F3F0L
— Roberto (@Roberto62543651) June 26, 2018
Activists on the left have called for more direct protests against the Trump administration and Republican officials supporting his immigration policies.
Rep. Maxine Waters endorsed such tactics over the weekend, saying at a 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.”
President Trump responded on Twitter in a post in which he said Waters “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!” the president said.
Some prominent Democratic lawmakers, such as Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, rebuked Waters and made calls for restraint.
But energized activists have argued gestures of civility and conciliation are ultimately empty and ineffective.
Copyright 2018 Raycom News Network. All rights reserved.
