Less than two weeks after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao--who is married to the Republican senator--were confronted by protesters over the Trump administration's family separation policy, McConnell faced another crowd of critics in a parking lot of a Louisville, Kentucky restaurant.
According to a video posted to Facebook and a report by the Washington Post, as McConnell and two companions exited the Bristol Bar & Grille and walked toward their vehicle on Saturday, a group of Democratic Socialists and other protesters chanted "vote you out" and "abolish ICE." Referencing the administration's family separation policy, some shouted, "Where are the children?" and "Where are the babies, Mitch?"
The protesters had been tipped off about McConnell's lunch location on social media while hundreds of people demonstrated nearby outside Louisville's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office.
Although the Democratic Socialists of Louisville confirmed that three people from the crowd are members of the political group, the chapter said the person who called McConnell a "turtle head" and shouted, "We know where you live, Mitch," is not a member of the organization.
"This person is not a DSA member, nor do we know who he is or what he meant by that statement," the chapter wrote in an email to the Post. "We believe it is a reference to peacefully protesting in front of McConnell's house, which is a regular occurrence in Louisville. However, we cannot speak more to the comment because it did not come from our organization or our members."
Asked to respond to the encounter, McConnell spokesman David Popp told the Post, "If the Leader comments on being called a fascist and a supporter of ICE by a small handful of extremist protesters then I will let you know."
The event is just the latest example of people publicly confronting key figures within the Trump administration and the Republican Party. Recently, critics of the family separation policy drove Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen out of a D.C. restaurant and demonstrated outside her Alexandria, Virginia home. Protests over the policy were also held outside the apartment complex of Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller, who was called a "fascist" by a patron at another restaurant.
Additionally, the owner of a Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia asked White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave her establishment and ahead of Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt's resignation, a woman reprimanded him at yet another restaurant because, as she later wrote, "This man is directly and significantly harming my child's--and every child's--health and future with decisions to roll back environmental regulations for the benefit of big corporations, while he uses taxpayer money to fund a lavish lifestyle."
