A group of liberal activists cornered Georgia U.S. Sen. David Perdue at a local airport on Monday, shouting after him to “stand up and do the right thing” by rejecting Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as he slipped into the men’s bathroom.
Several women affiliated with the progressive advocacy group the Center for Popular Democracy tracked down Perdue and several other GOP senators as they separately arrived at Reagan National Airport near Washington, D.C., ahead of the week’s votes.
An exchange posted on Twitter shows Perdue and his wife Bonnie trying to walk past the group, which asked the freshman Republican about where he stood on the FBI’s investigation of sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh.
The video shows Perdue briefly stopping and raising a finger after Isela Blanc, an Arizona state representative, walks in front of him and tries to shake his hand.
“Excuse me,” Perdue said. “If I’m touched another time—”
“—I haven’t touched you, sir,” Blanc responded. “You aren’t being touched, sir. We’re asking for you to stand up for justice.”
Blanc and two other women affiliated with the group are then seen shouting after Perdue as he slips into a nearby men’s restroom without discussing the high court nominee.
"Senator, how can you not talk to women who have been assaulted? How can you ignore our pleas?” said a woman the organization later identified as Jennifer Epps-Addison, the president of its state network and a survivor of sexual assault. “You have to exit at some point.”
The awkward encounter came three days after Perdue announced plans to vote for Kavanaugh's confirmation, shortly after the FBI kicked off a week-long investigation into sexual assault allegations levied against the nominee by several women. Perdue indicated the probe was unnecessary and said it was being used as a delay tactic by Democrats.
“It is time to take a vote before the full Senate. It is time to put the Democrats’ partisan delays behind us," Perdue said in a searing statement Friday.
The Center for Popular Democracy - which has ties to several prominent liberal groups, including George Soros' Open Society Policy Center - posted several similar confrontations on its Twitter account on Monday, including with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Tennessee Republican Bob Corker. It was also behind last week's viral video in which two sexual assault survivors tearfully confronted Arizona U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake on a Capitol Hill elevator.
The organization later issued a press release dinging “Senator David Pursue” (sic) for hiding from its questions.
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