Florida AG Pam Bondi says she won't be bullied after being confronted at Mr. Rogers movie
It wasn’t a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi says she won’t be bullied by protesters like those who confronted her at a Friday night screening of the Mister Rogers documentary over her support of President Trump.
“I’m not going to be bullied by them,” Bondi said on “Fox & Friends” on Monday.
Bondi said she was in line with her boyfriend to buy tickets for “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” at a Tampa, Fla., movie theater on Friday when a woman came up and began videotaping her.
“A woman approaches me in the ticket line and starts screaming that I was personally ripping babies out of the arms of mothers,” Bondi said. “And I said I’m glad you’re videoing this because I’ve never agreed with separating the mothers and the babies, and I said Congress has to act on this matter.”
Other protesters joined in, she said.
“Three huge guys came up and started, probably an inch from my face, screaming at me, every word in the book, cursing as loud as they could,” Bondi said.
A Florida state trooper assigned to Bondi intervened, and she and her boyfriend got their tickets and were headed into the theater when the protesters stopped them again.
“They ran and encircled me,” she said.
Bondi said the trooper again intervened, and they thought the situation was “defused.”
“We’re up getting popcorn at the concession stand and they came up again, just every curse word in the book,” Bondi recalled.
According to Bondi, one of the men spit on her head, though perhaps unintentionally.
“I can’t say that was intentional because he was yelling so loud,” she said. “I don’t know if it was him just spewing out of his mouth.”
The pair eventually made their way into the movie.
Video of a third confrontation, which occurred as Bondi was escorted by police from the theater, went viral after it was posted to social media.
Pam Bondi attempted to attend a screening of the Mister Rogers documentary a day after announcing her plan to end protections for health care consumers with pre-existing conditions. Here, via @timintampa, is what happened. pic.twitter.com/zMLrSayS8M
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) June 23, 2018
“What would Mr. Rogers think about you and your legacy in Florida?” one protester shouted. “Would Mr. Rogers take children away from their parents?”
Bondi wasn’t the only Trump supporter to be confronted in public on Friday. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders was asked to leave a small restaurant in rural Virginia after its staffers told the owner they were uncomfortable with her defense of the administration’s immigration policies.
“This feels like the moment in our democracy when people have to make uncomfortable actions and decisions to uphold their morals,” Red Hen owner Stephanie Wilkinson told the Washington Post.
At a rally in Los Angeles on Saturday, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., told protesters to continue the public confrontations.
“If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd,” Waters said. “And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”
Bondi, a Trump administration ally, accused Waters of “inciting violence.”
“If she asks people to protest, that’s one thing,” Bondi said. “But … it’s not just yelling at someone and cursing at someone in a public place. They were trying to create a fight.”
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