Protesters Swarm Donald Trump’s High-Profile Boston Fundraiser

Donald Trump’s $2,700-a-plate fundraiser at the Langham Hotel in Boston’s Financial District attracted hundreds of protesters and onlookers Wednesday morning, including Boston City Councilor At-Large Ayanna Pressley and Congressman Mike Capuano.

A heavy police presence lined Pearl and Franklin Street, while protesters holding anti-Trump signs and banging bucket drums gathered outside the Equinox gym across the street. High-profile Trump supporters Scott Brown, his wife Gail, and auto dealership mogul Ernie Boch Jr. entered the Langham to a chorus of boos.

Councilor Pressley, who endorsed Hillary Clinton in February, issued a blistering rebuke of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

“We’re here to black out Trump because he’s trying to erase and wipe out the hard-earned victories that we’ve delivered to this Commonwealth and America together,” Pressley said. “Donald Trump wants to erase and wipe out the gains by workers, but the LGBT community, by women, by immigrants, and people of color. How dare he say that he wants to make America great again, when he wants to vilify the very people who built it.”

When an anti-Clinton protester filming Capuano began shouting about the Whitewater and Travelgate scandals, the congressman told him to make sure he captured his face, so that Trump knows who he is.

“When you see somebody who’s made a national stage, who’s a national and international figure because Republicans have decided to nominate him for issues I still don’t understand, but they did,” Capuano said, “it’s critical for us who care about the issues we claim to care about to show up and call them lies.”

Trump’s fundraiser had been scheduled for earlier this month, but was postponed following the Orlando gay nightclub shooting. Wednesday’s protest attracted a varied crowd, including representatives from SEIU Local 888 and 1199, the Sierra Club, Jews Against Trump, and the Socialist Alternative.