Trump Officials Can No Longer Eat Out in Peace

Sarah Sanders, Kirstjen Nielsen, and Stephen Miller have all faced pushback over dinner.

Chris Kleponis and Ron Sachs/CNP/ZUMA; Cheriss May/NurPhoto/ZUMA

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It’s been a rough week for Trump administration officials trying to enjoy a dinner out.

First came the run-in on this past Sunday, when White House adviser Stephen Miller was hounded while eating at DC’s Espita Mezcaleria. According to the New York Post, diners called him a “real-life fascist begging money for new cages.”

On Tuesday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was forced to leave Mexican restaurant MXDC after hecklers descended on the Washington eatery shouting, “Shame!” “End family separation!” and “If kids don’t eat in peace, you don’t eat in peace!”

(The New Yorker noted their odd choice of dining venues, given the political optics.)

A couple of days later, protesters gathered outside Nielsen’s home, blasting the ProPublica audio of detained children crying at an immigration facility.

Then, on Friday night, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave The Red Hen, a farm-to-table restaurant in Lexington, Virginia. “I explained the restaurant has certain standards that I feel it has to uphold, such as honesty, and compassion, and cooperation,” the restaurant’s co-owner, Stephanie Wilkinson, told the Washington Post.

Well, there’s always Chick-fil-A.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

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