Ivanka Trump accosted by JetBlue passenger
Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, was verbally accosted on a JetBlue flight by another passenger angry about the election of her father to the presidency, TMZ reported.
A passenger, who was holding a child in his arms, reportedly started yelling at Ivanka Trump, “Your father is ruining the country.” And he continued, “Why is she on our flight? She should be flying private.”
Another passenger told TMZ that Trump attempted to distract her children and ignore the man, who was subsequently removed from the flight by JetBlue personnel. “You’re kicking me off for expressing my opinion,” he yelled as he was led off the plane, TMZ reported.
Matt Lasner, who claimed to be the husband of the passenger, tweeted early Thursday morning, “Ivanka and Jared at JFK T5, flying commercial. My husband chasing them down to harass them. The tweet was later removed, but here’s the screenshot.
The Trump transition team and U.S. Secret Service have no comment on the matter.
Two officials confirmed the incident involving Trump and said that the passenger was yelling at Trump and her family from a distance, and the decision to remove the passenger was made by JetBlue.
“The decision to remove a customer from a flight is not taken lightly,” JetBlue’s statement to CBS News read. “If the crew determines that a customer is causing conflict on the aircraft, the customer will be asked to deplane, especially if the crew feels the situation runs the risk of escalation during flight. In this instance, our team worked to re-accommodate the party on the next available flight.”
After landing in San Francisco, Ivanka Trump and her family were seen boarding a private plane to Kona International Airport in Hawaii. A security escort had been requested by the Secret Service prior to the JFK incident, San Francisco International Airport told CBS News.
CBS News’ Fernando Suarez, Andres Triay and Arden Farhi contributed to this report.
