The protesters who confronted President Donald Trump as he dined at a Washington, D.C. restaurant, chanting that he “is the Hitler of our time,” said all they had to do to get into the same room as Trump was make a reservation.
Grassroots organization Code Pink took responsibility for the protest Tuesday night inside Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab, a restaurant directly across the street from the White House that Trump chose to visit to highlight that D.C. is now safe after his federal takeover.
The activists chanted “They feast while Gaza starves,” “Trump is the Hitler of our time,” “Free D.C. Free Palestine!” and “Stop terrorizing communities all over the world,” as Trump and other senior administration officials ate at the restaurant.
“While Trump, J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, and others feasted at a steakhouse, we stood our ground and told them the truth,” Code Pink’s D.C. organizer Olivia DiNucci said in the statement.
In a social media post, the group noted: “Trump looked us in the eyes, and we made sure he would never dine in peace while communities are under siege.”
Code Pink describes itself as a grassroots organization looking to end U.S. warfare and imperialism, support peace and human rights initiatives, and redirect resources into healthcare, education, green jobs, and other life-affirming programs.
Videos taken by the group inside the restaurant show the activists chanting in the dining room, not far from Trump, and holding Palestinian flags. The White House sought to make it seem as though Trump had mostly received a warm welcome, sharing on X that the president was “greeted with cheers as he dines in D.C.” Other footage appeared to show some diners booing the protesters.
It was Trump’s first time eating a meal out at a restaurant outside of one of his hotels during either of his terms. The visit came after a reporter last week questioned why he had never been spotted dining out in D.C.
The Independent has reached out to the White House for comment.
Meanwhile, DiNucci told the Daily Beast that getting into the same room as Trump Tuesday night was as easy as making a reservation.
“We actually had a reservation, and got it pretty last minute, and went in,” she explained.
“We thought it was just going to be Trump, we didn’t know it was all of his Cabinet, and we didn’t think they would be in such an open room — we thought he’d be in a different area — and we were placed really close to them.”
DiNucci said the group hoped to make a point to Trump about his harmful policies — namely on immigration and the war in Gaza — and prevent him from enjoying his meal.
“For us, it’s the fact that he’s eating food that is grown, picked, transported, by the very same people that his regime is abducting from their neighborhoods and terrorizing, at the same time, funding and supporting the forced starvation and genocide of the Palestinian people, the amount that his cabinet has wreaked havoc,” DiNucci said.
She continued: “We were in there saying that he will absolutely not be able to have dinner in peace.”
Prominent MAGA figures and Trump loyalists expressed outrage over the apparent security failure by the Secret Service and questioned how they could allow the protesters to get so close.
Florida congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna questioned whether someone could have leaked the president’s location.
“Did someone leak the President’s location to the organization that showed up to protest him? Was this code pink? How are they allowed that close to him?” she wrote. “Where was Secret Service and was there someone in Secret Service that leaked his location? This needs to be looked into.”
Meanwhile, far-right activist and Trump devotee Laura Loomer took it a step further and suggested that House Speaker Mike Johnson, who is behind Vice President J.D. Vance in the presidential order of succession, could have ended up as president.
“Someone at Secret Service needs to be fired for this one. Is there a HAMAS sympathizer working at the U.S. Secret Service? Who let those rapid HAMAS lovers inside while Trump was in the restaurant? We need to find out and expose them,” Loomer wrote.
“This is unacceptable. POTUS could have been assassinated tonight. They could have stabbed him or shot him,” she added.
Conservative commentator Todd Starnes also expressed outrage, writing, “The Secret Service needs to explain how a bunch of pro-Hamas protesters managed to access the restaurant Trump was dining at tonight. Good grief!”
