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 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.
WATCH: CODEPINK activists just confronted @SecScottBessent at a dinner in D.C. One third of the entire world’s population lives under U.S. sanctions administered by Bessent. The Lancet estimates these sanctions kill nearly 600k people annually, most of them children under 5. pic.twitter.com/lzT1sI0jUf
— CODEPINK (@codepink) December 18, 2025
The Treasury secretary left the dinner in a huff soon after unsuccessful attempts at getting the restaurant’s host to intervene, according to NOTUS, which first reported on the incident.
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.
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