Acting Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli was screamed at and asked if he wanted to fight by former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley (D) at a Washington, D.C. bar/restaurant The Dubliner, located near the Capitol, Wednesday evening, prompting Cuccinelli to leave.  Both men were there for an annual gathering of their fellow Gonzaga College High School graduates. 

Ken Cuccinelli, screen image. 

Martin O’Malley, image via Twitter avatar. 

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The Washington Post first reported the story, but has apparently deleted without explanation a caustic comment from O’Malley calling President Trump a “fascist president.” 

“In a text to a Post reporter, the former Maryland governor calls the former Virginia AG “the son of immigrant grandparents who cages children for a fascist president.”” 

The “fascist president” slur was picked up by numerous outlets but has disappeared even from syndicated versions of the Post article. 

In a text to a Post reporter, the former Maryland governor calls the former Virginia AG “the son of immigrant grandparents who cages children for a fascist president.”  https://t.co/AD4szkIiuo — Morgan Baskin (@mhbaskin) November 28, 2019

O’Malley, Cuccinelli and an observer all agree that O’Malley raised his voice to criticize Cuccinelli over the Trump administration’s immigration policies. 

Martin O’Malley just drove Ken Cuccinelli out of the Dubliner in DC w/ a passion-laced and shame-invoking tirade on behalf of immigrant refugee children!!! —  Siobhan Houton Arnold (@siobhanphilly) November 27, 2019

Excerpt from the Washington Post:

Siobhan Arnold, who was visiting from Philadelphia, had just met O’Malley at the bar when Cuccinelli walked in.  Soon the two men were face-to-face, she said, with O’Malley excoriating Cuccinelli over the Trump administration’s immigration policies.  O’Malley said “something about his [Cuccinelli’s] grandparents,” Arnold said in an interview.  Cuccinelli said little if anything in reply, she added, quickly leaving the area. “ O’Malley was shouting,” Arnold said. “ I don’t think Cuccinelli was responding.  I think he’s like, ‘Time to go.  Just got here and I’m leaving.’  He pretty much retreated.”  O’Malley disputed Arnold’s account on one point: He said in a text message that he wasn’t shouting, but raised his voice “just to be heard” in the pub.  Both O’Malley and Cuccinelli described a confrontation that involved O’Malley hotly criticizing Cuccinelli’s politics.  And both said they eventually ended up face-to-face with O’Malley asking Cuccinelli if he wanted to throw a punch.  But the men disagreed on who invaded the other’s personal space.  Cuccinelli said O’Malley, after pushing through a group, bumped up against him, an action O’Malley denied.  O’Malley said Cuccinelli “put his chest up in mine, to which I said, ‘What is it, Ken?  You want to take a swing?’” 

Cuccinelli gave a lengthy statement to Fox News on Thursday.  Excerpts:

“I arrived at The Dubliner to meet with some of my Gonzaga classmates last night, Cuccinelli said in the statement. “ As I walked up to one of the bars among several in The Dubliner to order my Guinness, I heard screaming and cussing behind me to my left, which I did not immediately take notice of other than the fact that it was louder than everything else in the pub.”  Cuccinelli continued: “When I turned to look I saw O’Malley and he was obviously screaming at me.  For a moment I thought he was trying to be funny, as we’ve met before, which I thought was strange.  It was immediately clear that he was cursing and screaming for real, to the point of veins bulging on his neck.”  Cuccinelli added that O’Malley had “also inspired one or two of his (apparent) buddies to join in the cussing assault,” which the Trump official said he attempted to ignore.  Cuccinelli said he proceeded to attempt to order at a different bar within The Dubliner, but that O’Malley followed him. “[ A]t which point O’Malley pushed his way through the small group to confront me face to face, still cursing me, the President, and my Italian ancestry and he got right up in my face, bumped up against me and invited me to take a swing at him,” Cuccinelli recalled, adding, “at which point I said ‘Martin, one of us has to rise above this, and it’s obviously not going to be you.’”  Cuccinelli noted that some of O’Malley’s comments about Trump’s immigration policy were “odd” due to the fact that “they applied to President Obama’s policies, a fact he clearly did not appreciate me pointing out (without screaming it, btw).” … Meanwhile, after the incident O’Malley defended his actions to The Washington Post, which first reported on the incident, noting that he and other graduates were blasting Cuccinelli due to the former Trump administration immigration policy that separated families at the Southern border. “ We all let him know how we felt about him putting refugee immigrant kids in cages — certainly not what we were taught by the Jesuits at Gonzaga,” O’Malley said in a text to the Post, adding that Cuccinelli is “the son of immigrant grandparents who cages children for a fascist president.” 

In previous incidents, Trump officials have been driven out of establishments by random liberals and citizen activists.  This is the first time a high ranking Democrat has heeded the call of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) to harass Trump officials and supporters in public.