Elaine Chao blocks protesters from Mitch McConnell, shouts: 'Why don't you leave my husband alone?'

Elaine Chao.
(Image credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

While leaving an event at Georgetown University on Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, were greeted by students protesting the separation of undocumented children from their parents at the border.

One of the protesters, a Georgetown senior named Roberto, tweeted video of the confrontation on Tuesday. The demonstrators played audio of crying children in a detention center, and approached the couple as they left a building. "Why are you separating families?" one asked. "Why don't you leave my husband alone?" an irritated Chao responded. "Why don't you leave my husband alone?"

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.