Utah senator Orrin Hatch, like many of his colleagues in the past two weeks, was confronted by a cadre of anti–Brett Kavanaugh protesters inside the Hart Senate Office Building on Thursday. But unlike his colleagues, who mostly ignored the protesters and tried to get on with their elevator rides, Hatch snapped back.
When one protester asked, “Why aren’t you brave enough to talk to us?” Hatch, hiding behind his security detail, waved her away.
“Don’t you wave your hand at me,” the woman said. “I wave my hand at you.”
“When you grow up I’ll be glad to” talk, Hatch said. That’s when the women went off.
“I was like, How dare you talk to a woman like this?” one of the protestors told the Washington Post after the confrontation. “When I grow up? No woman deserves to be talked to like that.”
A spokesperson for Hatch defended his boss, who is the actual victim here. “In the last two weeks, Senator Hatch has had his private information shared online by a Democrat staffer during a hearing, putting him and his family in danger,” Matt Whitlock said in a statement. “He has been screamed at and harassed by the very same protestors who tried to prevent confirmation hearings from even happening. Republicans have received every kind of death threat imaginable — all for supporting Judge Brett Kavanaugh. But Senator Hatch will not be intimidated.”
