Man hops on White House lawn; Prez OK
A CALIFORNIA man was arrested after scaling the White House fence while President Trump was inside late Friday, officials said.
Jonathan Tran carried a backpack when he climbed the 10-foot barrier around 11:40 p.m., cops said. He was approaching a south entrance to the executive mansion when Secret Service agents spotted him and demanded security credentials.
“No, I am a friend of the President,” Tran, 26, told the agents, according to a police report. “I have an appointment.”
Tran had a letter addressed to Trump on him, in which he claimed to possess relevant information about “Russian hackers,” according to a criminal complaint. Tran also carried two cans of Mace and a book written by Trump. DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN looked like death Saturday as a dramatic die-in against Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare clogged the streets.
Activists hoisted signs shaped like tombstones that read “RIP Obamacare” and “The Blood Will Be on Your Hands.”
The event — which included patients and health care workers sharing personal stories about what the Affordable Care Act meant to them — culminated with hundreds lying on the sidewalk outside Brooklyn Borough Hall.
“This is dramatic and visible and real. We’re out here because it really is a matter of life or death,” said Councilman Brad Lander.
“There are 20,000-40,000 people who will die because of the repeal of the ACA. Significant studies by medical journals come to those conclusions.”
Protester Gabriel Cohen, 55, a freelancer and part-time professor, said he would have been dead if not for Obamacare.
“The ACA saved my life. Because of the ACA I was finally able to afford health insurance,” he said. “Shortly after that a swollen lymph node was found in my neck. It was stage III Hodgkins lymphoma.
“Without the ACA there’s no way I would have been able to get treatment.”