Acting Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli was publicly harassed Wednesday by Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley when the two ran into each other at a bar in Washington, D.C.
They crossed paths at an Irish pub, The Dubliner, where they were both attending an event for graduates of Gonzaga College High School. Rather than being able to enjoy his Guinness, however, Cuccinelli was subject to a “passion-laced and shame-invoking tirade” by O’Malley over the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
Martin O’Malley just drove Ken Cuccinelli out of the Dubliner in DC w/ a passion-laced and shame-invoking tirade on behalf of immigrant refugee children!!!
— Siobhan Houton Arnold (@siobhanphilly) November 27, 2019
O’Malley was so fired up Cuccinelli said his neck veins were “bulging.”
“As I walked up to one of the bars among several in The Dubliner to order my Guinness, I heard screaming and cussing behind me to my left, which I did not immediately take notice of other than the fact that it was louder than everything else in the pub,” Cuccinelli said, recalling the incident in a statement to Fox News.
“When I turned to look I saw O'Malley and he was obviously screaming at me. For a moment I thought he was trying to be funny, as we've met before, which I thought was strange. It was immediately clear that he was cursing and screaming for real, to the point of veins bulging on his neck.”
Cuccinelli said O’Malley “also inspired one or two of his (apparent) buddies to join in the cussing assault.”
Attempting to deescalate the situation, Cuccinelli left to go order at a different bar within the pub, but O’Malley followed him.
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“[A]t which point O'Malley pushed his way through the small group to confront me face to face, still cursing me, the President, and my Italian ancestry and he got right up in my face, bumped up against me and invited me to take a swing at him,” he said, adding that he told O’Malley ‘one of us has to rise above this, and it's obviously not going to be you.’
Cuccinelli then spotted a friend, who is a Democrat, and that person approached the men and “forced some friendly conversation in between Martin and I.”
After a brief exchange, Cuccinelli went to another part of the bar to see his high school friends.
“Martin's behavior was as sad as it was shocking,” Cuccinelli said in the statement. “I learned on the other side of the pub that Martin's screaming was so loud that people on the other side of the pub heard him. I also learned from others who have known Martin for years that while his behavior was shocking, it was not new to them.”
He described some of the criticism from O’Malley as “odd” given that “they applied to President Obama's policies, a fact he clearly did not appreciate me pointing out (without screaming it, btw).”
O’Malley seemed to have no regrets about his behavior, telling The Washington Post in a text: “We all let him know how we felt about him putting refugee immigrant kids in cages — certainly not what we were taught by the Jesuits at Gonzaga.”
Cuccinelli, O’Malley also told the Post, is “the son of immigrant grandparents who cages children for a fascist president.”
This is not the first time a Trump administration official has been publicly harassed, but it is likely the first time it's been done by such a prominent Democrat.
Worse still, the left celebrated the harassment.
Senior Adviser to Democrat presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg appears to be happy that a Democrat harassed a member of the Trump admin in public to the point where the official had to leave the event
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) November 29, 2019
A presidential campaign promoting harassment of officials is disgusting https://t.co/B24u8YTaCn pic.twitter.com/g7DK8EqfPl
Democrats -- more of this, please. And less of the "we can all just get along let's just pretend this is business as usual." https://t.co/yqJBD4N47T
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) November 28, 2019
God bless Martin O’Malley https://t.co/BLdOzSJkiv via @nuzzel
— Michelle Goldberg (@michelleinbklyn) November 28, 2019
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