Candace Owens: Prominent Trump supporters chased out of restaurant by protesters

‘At first, I thought it was a vegan protest... the protesters were screaming “white supremacist” and something about immigrants’

Right-wing pundit Candace Owens has drawn support from Kanye West (Getty)

Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens are outspoken leaders of the pro-Trump super PAC Turning Point USA.

Mr Kirk, the founder, has been called a conservative provocateur with the ear of the president. Ms Owens, the spokeswoman, has received tweet-based praise from Kanye West – and together they say they are “culture warriors” trying “to save Western Civilisation” from liberals.

But on Monday morning, they were hungry diners who showed up at Philadelphia’s Green Eggs Cafe in Midtown before it opened and managed to nab a window seat.

Then the screaming started.

The pair barely had time to peruse the menu before people – apparently demonstrators – started jeering at them from other tables, Malik Joe, the Green Eggs Cafe’s manager, told The Washington Post.

Outside their window, they could see a large group of protesters approaching the restaurant, flanked by police.

“At first, I thought it was a vegan protest,” Mr Joe said. At that point, he was unaware of the controversy that surrounded the people who’d walked into his restaurant on 13th Street.

The protesters “were screaming at one guy sitting in the window and I looked and he was laughing...the protesters were screaming ‘white supremacist’ and something about immigrants.”

Mr Joe said the protesters also flung food and objects.

At some point, Ms Owens pulled out her phone. She tweeted the scene from inside and outside the restaurant, including the moment when one demonstrator dumped a cup of something onto Mr Kirk’s head.

“Charlie Kirk and I just got ATTACKED and protested by ANTIFA for eating breakfast,” Ms Owens wrote a short time later. “They are currently following us through Philly. ALL BLACK AND HISPANIC police force protecting us as they scream.”

On Twitter, Mr Kirk said the incident was a direct result of Maxine Waters’ call for public harassment of Trump administration officials.

He and Ms Owens “were peacefully eating breakfast this morning", Mr Kirk tweeted. “Within 20 mins ANTIFA mobilised a protest, started screaming at us, attacked us, & threatened death against us. This is the face of the Democrats. Conservatives aren’t safe – @RepMaxineWaters called for this.”

Mr Kirk was apparently referring to a rally in Los Angeles in June, where Ms Waters commented on the public harassment of Trump administration officials. (Neither Mr Kirk nor Ms Owens qualifies as such.) Ms Waters’ words came after White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a restaurant and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen left a Mexican restaurant amid cries of “Shame!”

“The American people have put up with this president long enough. What more do we need to see? What more lies do we need to hear?” Ms Waters said. “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd, and you push back on them!”

Ms Sanders pushed back at the White House press briefing, as The Washington Post reported. She said people should be allowed to disagree “freely and without fear of harm” regardless of their political leaning.

Police did not confirm Ms Owens’s claims that the protesters were Antifa or that the pair was “ATTACKED".

A spokesman for the Philadelphia Police Department told The Washington Post on Monday morning that he had not yet heard of the incident, and could not say whether charges were filed or anyone was arrested.

The Daily Caller reported that Mr Kirk had opted to not press charges. Mr Joe said he would have called the police about the disruption, but officers were already there. His diners were surprised, but no one was injured. The only casualty was a broken plate.

The Washington Post