WASHINGTON: White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders was kicked out of a restaurant on Friday, becoming the second top aide of President Donald Trump to face public wrath amidst increasing pressure on him over his controversial policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the Mexican border.
Stephanie Wilkinson, co-owner of the Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia, asked Sanders and her family to leave as a protest against the Trump administration.
Sanders later tweeted that "her actions say far more about her than about me."
"I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so," Sanders said.
Wilkinson defended her action, saying she believed Sanders worked for an "inhumane and unethical" administration.
Wilkinson told The Washington Post that she "would have done the same thing again." She said that she asked Sanders to leave at the request of her staff of the 26-seat farm-to-table restaurant.
"I explained that the restaurant has certain standards that I feel it has to uphold, such as honesty, and compassion, and cooperation," Wilkinson recalled to The Post of her confrontation with Sanders.
"I said, 'I'd like to ask you to leave.'" The incident comes days after Homeland Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was booed at a Mexican restaurant in Washington DC.
Both cases come amid increasing pressure on the US government over its controversial policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the Mexican border.
A decision by the administration to criminally prosecute every undocumented migrant crossing the border led to some 2,300 children being separated from their parents in May and June and sparked a global wave of outrage.
President Trump has now halted family separations but says he remains committed to the "zero tolerance" policy.
Sanders' father, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, weighed in by describing the restaurant's actions as "bigotry".