White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was confronted in a Washington, D.C. Apple Store on Saturday by Shree Chauhan, a 33-year old Indian-American woman who took exception with Spicer's work for President Donald Trump.
Chauhan streamed the encounter live on Periscope and The New York Post excerpted parts of her exchange. "How does it feel to work for a fascist?" Chauhan begins, before going on to probe the White House's ties with Russia. Eventually, a flustered Spicer responded that America is "such a great country that allows you to be here.”
In a Medium post published on Sunday, Chauhan called this statement "an implied threat" and racist. "It’s one thing to have a Twitter egg tell say you do not belong in America, it is quite another to have the Press Secretary of the United States of America do so," she wrote.
“I am still stunned by the boldness of having my citizenship threatened on camera,” Calhoun continued. “I was not polite. But when does being impolite mean that I should be thrown out of the United States of America? The country I was born in, the country I was raised in, the country I love despite its flaws.”
The Daily Mail suggested yesterday that Spicer may have been referring to the First Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech for all American citizens. Chauhan strongly rejected this argument, referring to Trump's executive orders banning travel from Muslim-majority countries. "Don’t tell me what he probably meant because he also works for this administration that has done all of these things," Chauhan said.
"I hope my resistance allows others to gain the courage to resist too," Chauhan wrote in her Medium post. "If folks are already resisting, I hope it will give them energy to resist harder. If folks have not resisted, I hope it inspires them to get involved.
"These days I am constantly reminding others of their power. Every person in America has power. And together our collective power can end this illegitimate presidency."
Thumbnail image by Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images