Guests of the convention were confronted by protestors outside of the White House.
What We Know:
- The Republican National Convention concluded on Thursday evening and guests started to exit the White House not long after. Protests were planned just off of White House grounds and journalists on scene reported that the noise of the protestors could be heard from inside the convention.
- Late Thursday night, multiple videos began to surface on social media of Sen. Rand Paul and his wife Kelly being swarmed by a large group of citizens. At one point in the footage, Mr. Paul is nearly knocked over when a police officer with a bike gets into a shoving match with a protestor.
Rand Paul just got chased by a crowd back to his hotel, after leaving the White House from Trump’s Republican Party Nomination #DC #DCProtests pic.twitter.com/h1kPcZG1jh
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) August 28, 2020
- Later Sen. Paul tweeted about the incident.
Just got attacked by an angry mob of over 100, one block away from the White House. Thank you to @DCPoliceDept for literally saving our lives from a crazed mob.
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) August 28, 2020
- On Friday, Sen. Paul went on Fox and Friends to describe the experience.
“They were yelling threats…They were also shouting say her name ‘Breonna Taylor’ and it’s like you couldn’t reason with this mob but I’m actually the author of the Breonna Taylor Law to end no-knock raids, so the irony is lost on these idiots that they are trying to kill the person who’s actually trying to get rid of no knock raids.”
- Other guests of the convention also faced showdowns with protestors. Sen. Vernon Jones, a pro-Trump Democrat from Georgia was followed by another group of protesters as he exited the White House grounds.
- Sen. Paul criticized Vice President Biden and Kamala Harris for not speaking out against violence in American streets and praised President Trump for doing so in his convention speech.
Sen. Paul has now called for an FBI investigation and arrests of the people who confronted him and his wife. He believes they were hired to incite a riot, but offered no evidence to support that claim.