WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent clapped back at left-wing protesters who rudely interrupted him while he was dining in DC Wednesday night.
“You are ignorant,” the cabinet official said, mocking the faux-toast from the protester by raising his wine glass in response. “And you don’t know how ignorant you are.”
“Boo!” Bessent and others also shouted down the demonstrators while eating at a restaurant in the district’s Adams Morgan neighborhood.
“We want to make a toast,” CODEPINK protester Olivia DiNucci had goaded the secretary after he sat down. “So let’s give it up for the man who is eating in peace as people starve across the world based on his sanctions which are economic warfare.”
DiNucci claimed Bessent was “responsible for the death of 600,000 people annually” due to the sanctions.
Bessent’s Treasury has sanctioned Iranian terror proxy groups like the Houthis, leaders of drug trafficking cartels and gangs like Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua, and those who have funneled their profits to such groups — including a bikini-loving model and DJ from South America.
The Treasury secretary left the dinner in a huff soon after unsuccessful attempts at getting the restaurant’s host to intervene, NOTUS first reported.
“The Secretary was shocked that, despite the resounding booing of this unhinged individual by other diners, the restaurant owner refused to remove the heckler,” a Treasury spokesman told The Post. “It is truly sad that a paid professional protester who can’t find real employment decided to interrupt everyone’s meal.”
A source familiar with the incident added that Bessent darted “because the restaurant owner refused to respect other diners and remove the heckler in question.”
“Also, the food sucked,” the source added.
CODEPINK has received some funding from the China-based billionaire Neville Singham. His wife, Jodie Evans, co-founded it.
Described on its website as “a feminist grassroots organization working 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,” the organization has been involved in anti-Israel demonstrations on Capitol Hill for years.
It’s not the first time Bessent’s taken heckling in stride.
Last month, the secretary appeared to gleefully capture footage of demonstrators shrieking at him and other diners as they headed into Butterworth’s on Capitol Hill.
“Donald Trump: Eat s–t!” one protester shrieked from outside the popular dining destination for Republicans in DC, using some form of voice modulator that forced his voice to become obnoxiously shrill.
“Secretary Bessent not phased by tonight’s Butterworth protestors,” owner and chef Bart Hutchins posted on X.
The Trump official also isn’t one to back down from a confrontation, having threatened at an Executive Branch social club dinner to punch Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte in the “f—ing face” for allegedly trash-talking him to the president.
Trump was himself heckled, along with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, when dining at Joe’s Seafood in Northwest DC the same month — but those demonstrators got the boot immediately.
“Free DC! Free Palestine! Trump is the Hitler of our time!” the female protesters chanted in Joe’s main dining room as they waved small Palestinian flags.
Trump, Vance and Rubio appeared unfazed as well. The women were escorted away by law enforcement.
