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Pence Visit Draws Protesters

Eileen Fleming
/
WWNO

As Vice President Mike Pence and Congressman Steve Scalise rallied supporters inside the World War II Museum on Thursday evening, some two dozen protesters gathered a few blocks away to voice their opposition to administration policies.

Allison Prendergast of Metairie held an anti-Trump balloon, depicting the President as a baby. Prendergast says  she’s been a registered Republican for 35 years but no longer backs the party. She objected when Congressman Steve Scalise voted against the Affordable Care Act, cutting her health coverage. And she says White House policies on immigration are troubling.

“Germans didn’t speak up in the 1930s and look what happened. If we don’t speak up – everybody said it would never happen again. We are now having children in cages. It is again. It is now,”  Prendergast said.

Sharon McDonald, also of Metairie, spent 24 years in the Navy before retiring as a captain – all while concealing being gay. She says Pence’s opposition to same-sex relationships could reverse rights granted under the Obama administration.

“He’s very anti-gay and I’m very concerned about that," McDonald said.

Police blocked traffic and pedestrians from the museum area during the fundraiser.

Eileen is a news reporter and producer for WWNO. She researches, reports and produces the local daily news items. Eileen relocated to New Orleans in 2008 after working as a writer and producer with the Associated Press in Washington, D.C. for seven years.

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