U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, were confronted by protesters as they left a dinner at Georgetown University on Tuesday night, according to media and social media sources.
The protesters loudly questioned McConnell as he got in his SUV about his support of the Trump administration's immigration policies.
One protester, just inches from Chao, repeatedly shouted, "How do you sleep at night?" Another asked McConnell why he was separating families, to which Chao said, "He's not."
Chao also pointed her finger at the protesters, saying several times, "You leave my husband alone. Leave my husband alone."
In a video posted by The Hill, a female security guard can be seen shoving a protester away.
McConnell spokesman David Popp declined to comment when reached by the Courier Journal.
"We do not comment on protesters," he said.
This incident is the latest in a string of occurrences involving members of the Trump administration. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen was confronted by protesters at a Mexican restaurant last week, while a restaurant in Lexington, Virginia, refused to serve Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Friday night.
It also comes just days after U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, a California Democrat, praised the “no peace, no sleep” protests and called for stepping up confrontations with Trump officials in public places.
“Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up, and if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station,” she told a throng of cheering supporters, “you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”
Republicans and Democrats in Congress have denounced that statement. House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin called for Waters to apologize on Tuesday.
Gabe Hauari: 502-582-4232; ghauari@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @GabeHauari
