Politics

Protesters Storm Heritage Foundation In Budget Demonstration

Phillip Stucky, TheDCNF

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Phillip Stucky Political Reporter
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Activists with the left-leaning protest group People’s Action stormed the Heritage Foundation’s lobby during an anti-budget March Tuesday.

People’s Action organizers planned a secret protest at the Heritage Foundation and were able to storm the lobby of the right-wing think tank before security could lock the doors.

Roughly 200 protesters occupied the narrow space, chanting against Trump for ten minutes straight before speakers began commenting on the Flint water crisis in a stunning segue.

Several employees of the Heritage Foundation attempted to get through the crowd, and members of the protest pushed and shoved them back while the leader of the protest shouted: “Don’t let anyone pass!”

Protesters attempted to bar this Daily Caller News Foundation reporter from following the protest on a public sidewalk, using 14 “marshalls” to strong arm him to the side. It didn’t work.

The protest started just outside of the White House gates Tuesday morning before members of the Secret Service pushed the crowd across the street into Lafayette Park. Police arrested the nearly dozen protesters who stayed behind, and an organizer explained that the arrested protesters volunteered to be visibly arrested for the cameras.

“More than a thousand protesters from throughout the country will be outside the White House Tuesday starting at 9 a.m. demanding a federal budget that benefits people and our planet instead of corporate greed and the Wall Street elite,” the group’s press release asserted.

The press release didn’t mention that there was a “secret” secondary location that not even the middle-level organizers knew about. Organizers arranged and paid for school buses to take the protesters to the Heritage Foundation.

“Donald Trump isn’t intelligent enough to create the budget on his own,” an unnamed bus captain told the crowd in an undercover video obtained by TheDCNF. “So we are going to the Heritage Foundation, to confront them about the horrible budget plan they helped create!”

The protest put an end to a People’s Action three-day conference at the Omni Shoreham hotel in NW Washington, D.C. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Jeff Merkley spoke during the protest training conference, as well as Rep. Keith Ellison and CNN contributor Van Jones.

The conference was geared towards training Democratic activists in the art of opposing Republicans nationwide. Classes in the training included “Why you should run! Building a slate of movement candidates,” “Student Action: The fight for free higher education,” and “Moving from Protest to Power.”

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