‘How Does It Feel to Work for a Fascist?’: Woman Accosts Sean Spicer at Apple Store, Says She’s Not Sorry

Video Goes Viral

At a Washington, D.C. area Apple store on Saturday, Shree Chauhan looked up to see Sean Spicer. An experience activist – she says she is the person who organized the Betsy DeVos blockade at a DC public school – Chauhan says she Googled Spicer’s photo just to make sure she was certain it was the White House Press Secretary standing in front of her.

And then she went in to action.

“How does it feel to work for a fascist?” Chauhan demanded to know. She says her intention was to “speak truth to power.”

 “Have you helped with the Russia stuff? Are you a criminal as well? Have you committed treason, too, just like the president? What can you tell me about Russia?” she asked.

“You know you work for a fascist, right? You work for a fascist. How do you feel about that? How do you feel about destroying our country Sean? How do you feel about that? Do you feel good about the decisions you’re making. About lying to the American people? Do you feel good about lying to the American people?”

Then entire exchange lasted just under a minute, but the video, which she posted to Twitter via Periscope has been viewed nearly 700,000 times.

Chauhan says Spicer’s remarks led her to pen her first post on Medium.

“We have a great country,” he told her.

And then, this: “Such a great country that allows you to be here.”

Chauhan calls Spicer’s remarks “racism” and “an implied threat.”

“Think about the sheer audacity of Mr. Spicer to say that to my face with a smile, knowing that he that he is being recorded on video and the position of power he holds in our government,” she adds.

The Washington Post says Chauhan is of Indian heritage.

“I am still stunned by the boldness of having my citizenship threatened on camera,” she writes.

Acknowledging she was “not polite,” Chauhan asks: “But when does being impolite mean that I should be thrown out of the United States of America? The country I was born in, the country I was raised in, the country I love despite its flaws.”

I have spent enough time with online to encounter rabid Trump supporters. Many of these folks see my brown skin and question my citizenship. They question whether I am here legally. They tell me to leave the country. They have told me to go back to where I came from. To which my snarky reply is often, “Go back where? New York?”

It’s one thing to have a Twitter egg tell say you do not belong in America, it is quite another to have the Press Secretary of the United States of America do so. I am still astounded. And while I am fearless, I wonder how this administration will use its power to silence ordinary people like me.

In an interview with TIME Chauhan says, “I’m not sorry”  

“What I did is like a blip compared to what this admiration is doing and what Mr. Spicer is complicit in doing, which is undermining this country’s constitution and our democratic values.”