“Free D.C., Free Palestine”: Protesters Call Out Trump at Restaurant
Trump’s victory lap at a Washington, D.C., restaurant didn’t quite go as planned.

President Donald Trump finally decided to step out in Washington, D.C., to prove how safe the city was and was immediately called “the Hitler of our time” to his face.
On Tuesday night, Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President JD Vance, and other Cabinet members pulled up to Joe’s Seafood, an upscale surf and turf restaurant about a block from the White House.
The motley crew was both booed and cheered lightly as they entered the restaurant.
“I wouldn’t have done this three months ago, four months ago, I certainly wouldn’t have done it a year ago,” the president told reporters outside the restaurant. “This was one of the most unsafe cities in the country. Now it’s as safe as there is in the country.”
Once they got inside, they were met by a group of activists from women’s antiwar group CODEPINK.
In the video, the activists can be heard chanting “Free D.C., Free Palestine, Trump is the Hitler of our time,” while Trump and his Cabinet stand across the room, trying to ignore them. Then Trump comes to the table and stands directly in front of them, smiles wryly and tilts his head, then waves his index finger in their direction as if to say, “Get ’em outta here.”
People confront Donald Trump at a DC restaurant. He smiles at the camera as they chant “Free DC, free Palestine, Trump is the Hitler of our time.”
— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) September 10, 2025
Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, and JD Vance seen alongside Trump for the dinner. pic.twitter.com/icBKF2j5Uu
“What do you want your legacy to be?” one woman asked Trump.
Security began to attempt to herd the women out. They continued to yell directly in the faces of Trump, Rubio, and Hegseth. “All right, time to go!’ security told CODEPINK.
“He is terrorizing communities in D.C., he is terrorizing Gaza, and communities all over the world. To Puerto Rico, to the Philippines!” they said. CODEPINK later put out a press release taking responsibility for the action.
“Two years into genocide, Gaza is under evacuation orders, Puerto Rico and Venezuela are in the crosshairs, and the Pentagon proudly calls itself the Department of War. Trump looked us in the eyes, and we made sure he would never dine in peace while communities are under siege,” an organizer wrote.
Trump has been making ridiculous statements for weeks about how everyone in the city was just too afraid of crime to dine out at night before his federal takeover. Now, as he shows how safe it all is by driving barely a block away from the White House, community members have made their dissatisfaction known.
And regardless of what he says, most D.C. residents report that they don’t feel safer seeing guys in military gear with machine guns on the Metro.
As for Gaza—Trump has doubled down on U.S. fealty to the Israeli war machine as famine tears through the region. Just yesterday, Israel bombed a neighborhood in Doha, Qatar, in an attempt to kill Hamas leaders, a shocking move of aggression against another close U.S. ally in the Middle East.
All of that came to a head last night before dinner. But it didn’t seem to disrupt his Cabinet’s appetites much. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who was also in attendance, said the food at Joe’s was “phenomenal.”