WASHINGTON (Reuters) – White House press secretary Sarah Sanders will get Secret Service protection after she was asked to leave a restaurant in southern Virginia in protest of President Donald Trump’s policies, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The source did not provide details. The Secret Service and the White House both declined to confirm the matter.
NBC News, which first reported that Sanders would get protection, said security would be provided at her home on a temporary basis, citing a law enforcement official.
Sanders was asked to leave the Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia, on Friday because she worked for Trump. The owner later confirmed the reasoning to media, and the incident drew praise and condemnation online for the restaurant.
The incident prompted Twitter attacks from the president on Monday.
Trump lashed out at Democratic U.S. Representative Maxine Waters, who told a crowd in California on Sunday that the Red Hen’s actions should be a model for resisting the president’s administration.
Tensions have risen over the Republican president’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy that initially led to migrant children being separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, said the protection was related to other threats Sanders has received.
“Well, it’s not so much related to the Red Hen as it is to other threats and you got to remember, she has three small children and there have been some nasty things,” Mike Huckabee said in an interview with Fox Business Network.
(Reporting by Steve Holland and Doina Chiacu; Editing by David Gregorio and Bernadette Baum)
