--- title: Trump Uses Sarah Huckabee Sanders Protest to Raise Money description: President Trump is using recent protests against White House officials to raise money, describing the incidents as "vicious bullying" canonical: https://time.com/5323005/donald-trump-harassment-protest-fundraising/ author: Katie Reilly article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-06-26T23:39:17.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T20:41:36.126Z article:section: Politics og:title: President Trump Is Using 'Harassment' of Sarah Huckabee Sanders to Raise Campaign Funds og:description: In a fundraising email, Trump described protests against his staff as "vicious bullying" og:url: https://time.com/5323005/donald-trump-harassment-protest-fundraising/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde8617a0980a241e/698933f4bc6cfc0ac63e650b/donald-trump-harassment-fundraising-email.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5056 og:image:height: 2844 og:image:alt: President Trump Presents The Medal Of Honor At The White House og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Trump Is Using 'Harassment' of Sarah Huckabee Sanders to Raise Campaign Funds twitter:description: In a fundraising email, Trump described protests against his staff as "vicious bullying" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde8617a0980a241e/698933f4bc6cfc0ac63e650b/donald-trump-harassment-fundraising-email.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump Is Using 'Harassment' of Sarah Huckabee Sanders to Raise Campaign Money > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Jun 26, 2018 11:39 PM UTC  President Donald Trump speaks during a Medal of Honor ceremony in the East Room of the White House on June 26, 2018. President Donald Trump speaks during a Medal of Honor ceremony in the East Room of the White House on June 26, 2018.Al Drago—Bloomberg/ Getty Images  by [Katie Reilly](https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/)  ## Katie Reilly Jun 26, 2018 11:39 PM UTC President Trump is using recent protests against White House officials to raise campaign money, describing the incidents as “harassment” and “vicious bullying” in a campaign fundraising email sent out Tuesday. “Sarah Huckabee Sanders was kicked out of a restaurant,” reads the email, which was paid for by the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, a joint fundraising effort for his campaign and the Republican National Committee. “Kirstjen Nielsen was harassed in her own home. Homeland Security staffers have been warned of ‘increased threats’ from the open borders mob.” Sanders, the White House press secretary, was [denied service](http://time.com/5321104/red-hen-businesses-deny-service/) at a restaurant called The Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia on Friday because of her role in the Trump Administration. Earlier last week, Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen was heckled at a Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C., after she defended the administration’s policy of separating migrant parents and their children at the border. Protesters later gathered outside her townhouse and played audio of detained migrant children crying out for their parents. “And now Democrat Maxine Waters is calling for MORE HARASSMENT of the Silent Majority,” continues the fundraising email for Trump, [who has](https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/02/27/in-good-old-days-donald-trump-says-campaign-protesters-got-more-than-just-an-escort-out/) not shied away from [violent rhetoric](http://time.com/4256809/donald-trump-l/) at his [own political rallies](http://time.com/4090437/donald-trump-violence-protests-republican-debate/). Waters, a congresswoman representing California, told supporters [told supporters](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1Fu3g1MGHY) on Saturday to [confront Trump Administration officials](http://time.com/5320865/maxine-waters-confront-trump-staffers-family-separation-policy/) in public to protest family separation. Waters later said that [she was not calling for physical harm](http://time.com/5321827/maxine-waters-trump-staffers-family-separation-comments/) against anyone. “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, and you tell them they are not welcome anymore, anywhere,” Waters said during the weekend rally. Her comments drew backlash from the President, who responded on Twitter by calling her an “extraordinarily low IQ person.” House Speaker Paul Ryan called for Waters to apologize on Tuesday, saying, “there is just no place for that in our public discourse.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5323005/donald-trump-harassment-protest-fundraising/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5323005/donald-trump-harassment-protest-fundraising/"},"headline":"President Trump Is Using 'Harassment' of Sarah Huckabee Sanders to Raise Campaign Money","datePublished":"2018-06-26T23:39:17.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T20:41:36.126Z","description":"In a fundraising email, Trump described protests against his staff as \"vicious bullying\"","url":"https://time.com/5323005/donald-trump-harassment-protest-fundraising/","keywords":["Donald Trump","White House","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde8617a0980a241e/698933f4bc6cfc0ac63e650b/donald-trump-harassment-fundraising-email.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Katie Reilly","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/katie-reilly/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde8617a0980a241e/698933f4bc6cfc0ac63e650b/donald-trump-harassment-fundraising-email.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"President Trump Presents The Medal Of Honor At The White House","caption":"President Trump Presents The Medal Of Honor At The White House","creditText":"Al Drago—Bloomberg/ Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5323005/donald-trump-harassment-protest-fundraising/","name":"President Trump Is Using 'Harassment' of Sarah Huckabee Sanders to Raise Campaign Money"}}]}] ```