Progressive protesters raised a ruckus in a swanky San Francisco hotel Wednesday evening to disrupt the presentation of a lifetime achievement award to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and demand immediate impeachment proceedings against the president.
“Impeach Trump now!” the activists screeched as they stood on chairs in the grand ballroom of the InterContinental San Francisco, where dozens gathered with the San Francisco Democratic Party to honor Pelosi.
One of the agitators, Thais Marques, told the packed room “people are being killed by white supremacists” across the country, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
Another reminded Pelosi “we are your constituents” as the protestors unfurled black signs – “We can’t wait” and “Time to impeach!” in white paint.
“Speaker Pelosi, I am undocumented. My community is being targeted by ICE and killed by white supremacists. Fight for my community and impeach Trump NOW. We can’t wait. Impeach Trump,” she said as other repeated with an echo effect.
The protest was orchestrated by “progressive activism organization” CREDO Action, which counts Marques as a campaign manager, according to Fox News.
The outburst occurred as Pelosi took the podium to speak, and it was met with blowback from the 79-year-old’s supporters, who chanted “Pelosi! Pelosi!” and yelled at the agitators to “hush,” “let her speak,” and “sit down!” Pelosi mostly ignored the melee and joked it was “making me feel right at home.”
San Francisco police and security officers eventually escorted the troublemakers outside, where CREDO Action held a rally to both insult the House Speaker and demand her cooperation.
BREAKING: #WeCantWait Impeachment protest outside the San Francisco Democratic Party’s “Heart of the Resistance” dinner where @SpeakerPelosi is receiving a lifetime achievement award.
WATCH:https://t.co/vqWAtdAQZL pic.twitter.com/wUWGBBqxCL
— CREDO Mobile (@CREDOMobile) August 22, 2019
“BREAKING: #WeCantWait Impeachment protest outside the San Francisco Democratic Party’s ‘Heart of the Resistance’ dinner where @SpeakerPelosi is receiving a lifetime achievement award,” CREDO Mobile, an affiliated group, posted to Twitter.
Outside the hotel, a few dozen waived signs too small to read and stood along the roadside with large banners that read “#Vigilfordemocracy,” “IMPEACH” and “TIME TO LEAD.”
“What do we want?” a man unenthusiastically yelled through a megaphone.
“Impeachment,” the crowd chanted.
“When do we want it?” he asked
“Now!” they yelled.
CREDO Action campaign manager Nicole Regalado was among several folks at the protest who screamed about they think Pelosi should follow their advice.
“If Speaker Pelosi does not lead on impeachment, she won’t leave a legacy of resistance like many other San Francisco Democrats,” Regalado told the demonstrators. “She will leave a legacy of failure by not fighting against one of the biggest threats to our families and communities.”
Most of the other speakers echoed some variation of the same message.
“Today, I stand here grounded in my immigrant experience as a U.S. citizen with a right to vote, a big mouth, and a big megaphone. I am a Trump administration’s worst nightmare,” Regalado said, reading from a prepared script.
“Speaker Pelosi is right inside, about to receive a lifetime achievement award, but her legacy at a crossroads. While Donald Trump empowers white supremacists who are gunning down our communities, locks up children and migrant families in concentration camps, strips away healthcare protections for transgender people, and cuts millions of women off from accessing healthcare from Planned Parenthood, Speaker Pelosi keeps telling us to wait on impeachment.
“She tells us to wait for the Mueller report, wait for the unredacted Mueller report, wait until impeachment polls better, wait for 2020,” she continued. “I’m here to say that my family, my community, our families, our communities, cannot afford to wait any longer.”
Marques said after she was kicked out of the party that Pelosi and her supporters are “in denial.”
“I expected her, and the other attendees, to at least her me out, but I literally screamed into a void of privilege, complacency and denial,” she said, according to Fox News. “Pelosi’s refusal to hear me speaks volumes about the limits of today’s Democratic Party, which congratulates itself on hating Trump but is unwilling to act to rein him in.”
A Monmouth University poll release Thursday shows 59 percent of Americans currently oppose impeaching President Trump, the highest level since the pollster started asking the question two years ago.
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