NEWS 2016 ELECTION AFTERMATH
Passenger thrown off flight after confronting Ivanka Trump
By David K. Li December 22, 2016 | 10:58am | Updated
Modal Trigger Passenger thrown off flight after confronting Ivanka Trump
Ivanka Trump Getty Images
JetBlue kicked a Brooklyn lawyer and his husband off a plane at JFK on Thursday morning — after he accosted fellow passenger and future First Daughter Ivanka Trump and her family right before takeoff.
“Your father is ruining the country!” Dan Goldstein shouted at Trump, as she sat with her husband Jared Kushner and their three kids in the coach section of the cabin, TMZ reported.
The pre-flight shout-down on the Palm Beach, Fla-bound plane happened minutes after Goldstein’s seat-mate tweeted that “my husband” was “chasing” Trump and her family down “to harass them.”
“Ivanka and Jared at JFK T5,” Matthew Lasner tweeted at just before 6:30 a.m., referring to Terminal Five. “Flying commercial,” the tweet noted.
“My husband chasing them down to harass them,” the tweet continued, followed by the hashtag #banalityofevil.
Goldstein, who had a child in his arms, began shouting at Trump as the plane readied to take off, demanding to know why she was on the flight and not on a commercial plane, TMZ reported.
“Why is she on our flight? She should be flying private,” he reportedly shouted.
One passenger on the flight told TMZ that Ivanka calmly ignored the shouts and tried distracting her three kids with crayons.
Both men were escorted off the plane and offered “the next available flight,” the airline said.
“You’re kicking me off for expressing my opinion?” one of the men griped as they were led out, according to TMZ.
“The decision to remove a customer from a flight is not taken lightly,” JetBlue said in a statement issued later Thursday.
“If the crew determines that a customer is causing conflict on the aircraft, the customer will be asked to deplane, especially if the crew feels the situation runs the risk of escalation during flight,” the airline said.
“In this instance, our team worked to re-accommodate the party on the next available flight.”
