Anti-Israel protesters swarmed around former Republican presidential primary candidate Vivek Ramaswami across Chicago’s Union Park, just a few blocks from the Democratic National Convention.
“Go home racists! Go home racists!” protesters shouted at Ramaswami as security forces formed a protective ring around him.
Then performance artist Crackhead Bernie appeared.
“Why are you a genocidal warmonger?” she cried.
The internet celebrity made headlines after he harassed Alec Baldwin with an anti-Israel tantrum at a New York coffee shop, and later gushed about the incident on “Piers Morgan Uncensored.”
Bernie’s age and real name are unknown, but the provocateur is based in New York.
She first rose to fame in recent years for angering MAGA rally-goers as an ambush interviewer, but has more recently focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Ramaswami, 39, spoke out himself about the tense protests early Thursday, noting how the Democratic convention was heavily guarded by anti-Israel protesters.
“I’m pleased that Democrats seem to support President Donald Trump’s wall agenda,” Trump said at a news conference at the Trump Hotel in Chicago.
“If they cared as much about keeping illegal immigrants out of our country as they do about keeping left-wing protesters out of their own conventions, the border crisis would actually be solved,” he said pointedly.
Ramaswami is one of the few Republican presidential primary candidates who opposes further U.S. military aid to Israel in its fight against Hamas terrorists, a potential point of agreement with the protesters who attacked him on Thursday.
He also spoke out against cracking down on the free speech of college protesters who have appeared on college campuses since the Oct. 7 mass killings, even when it leans toward hate speech.
“Hate speech is an expression of opinion, and all opinions, no matter how heinous, are protected,” Ramaswamy told NBC News in October.
