Melania Trump summons Secret Service after Peter Fonda's "sick and irresponsible" tweet
The U.S. Secret Service was summoned on Tuesday by First Lady Melania Trump's office following Oscar-winning actor Peter Fonda's call to his Twitter followers that her 12-year-old son Barron "should be ripped from her mother's arms" and put "in a cage with pedophiles."
The Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy against illegal immigration has come in for widespread criticism in the US and across the world, with many taking issues with children being separated from their parents at the US-Mexico border. The Fonda's expletive-laden rant about President Donald Trump's border crisis was termed "sick and irresponsible" by Trump's spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham.
Grisham told Daily Mail that the secret service has been informed about the tweet. The service is charged with a variety of specialized jobs including the security of the White House, the president, the first lady, their children, and all former first families.
A host of public personalities, including Willie Nelson and Meghan McCain, have called President Donald Trump to put a stop to children being separated and being held in what the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) has said are “highly inappropriate and even unsafe” circumstances with adults they do not know and “without the proper privacy” that they need.
But the most strident criticism against the policy came from actor Peter Fonda, who told his Twitter followers on Tuesday that Trump's 12-year-old son Barron should be "ripped from his mother's arms and put in a cage with pedophiles" to see if she will “stand up against” her husband then.
The 'Easy Rider' actor, who has more than 46,000 followers on the micro-blogging site, didnt just stop there, and also directed his ire at the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Nielsen, calling her a “lying gash” that should be “put in a cage and poked at” by people walking past.
“The gash should be pilloried in Lafayette Square naked and whipped by passersby while being filmed for posterity,” he tweeted.
Fonda also took an aim at White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, also calling her a “lying gash,” clarifying that the word “gash” is “much worse than c**t” and suggesting that her children should be taken away from her and given to White House senior advisor Stephen Miller, whom he earlier referred to as a 'pedophile'.
Fonda also called Miller, who is Jewish, 'Goebbels' in a reference to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, an extreme anti-Semite who supported the Holocaust and who arranged the murder of his own children in 1945.
Furthermore, Fonda urged his followers to find the addresses of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and “surround their homes” in protest.
He then suggested that people should go to the schools of the ICE official’s children to “scare the s**t out of them.”
While Fonda elicited some support and engaged with his followers over starting a countrywide protest against the Trump administration’s policies, others were not okay about his method.
TV presenter Piers Morgan said that while he too found the child-separation policy “abhorrent”, Fonda’s response to it was “disgusting too”.
On the other hand, a number of conservative commentators criticized Fonda for his “deranged” meltdown, terming him “unhinged” and“unstable”.