Donald Trump waded into the controversy surrounding a Virginia restaurant refusing to serve his press secretary, Sarah Sanders, in a tweet Monday, slamming the Red Hen and suggested that it was unsanitary.
“The Red Hen Restaurant should focus more on cleaning its filthy canopies, doors and windows (badly needs a paint job) rather than refusing to serve a fine person like Sarah Huckabee Sanders,” he tweeted. “I always had a rule, if a restaurant is dirty on the outside, it is dirty on the inside!”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1011212766487728133
The tweet came moments after “Fox & Friends” addressed the Red Hen incident on its Monday morning program. Many of the earliest responses to the tweet were links to articles documenting past troubles from restaurants at Trump properties, like this 2017 Miami Herald piece about health code violations at Mar-a-Lago.
Over the weekend, Sanders tweeted that she had been asked to leave the restaurant by its owner.
“Last night I was told by the owner of Red Hen in Lexington, VA to leave because I work for @POTUS and I politely left,” she tweeted Saturday. “Her actions say far more about her than about me. I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so.”
Last night I was told by the owner of Red Hen in Lexington, VA to leave because I work for @POTUS and I politely left. Her actions say far more about her than about me. I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so
— Kayleigh McEnany 45 Archived (@PressSec45) June 23, 2018
The tweet sparked a minor back-and-forth on the issue.
Sanders is the third and most high profile Trump official whose work for the president has led to an uncomfortable moment in a restaurant. Last week both Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and senior advisor Stephen Miller were jeered out of Mexican eateries by protesters amid growing anger over detention centers for undocumented migrants at the border.