Sean Spicer ventured out to his local Apple store this weekend but found out that being the mouthpiece for a highly controversial president means having to take some guff when you're in public.
SEE ALSO:CNN is Sean Spicer's enemy except for when it's reporting good things about TrumpShree Chauhan spotted Spicer at the store on Saturday night and began broadcasting on Periscope, peppering him with questions like “You work for a fascist, how do you feel about that?” and “What can you tell me about Russia?”
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The entire video lasts less than a minute but it's still generated a lot of buzz.
During the exchange, Spicer plays it cool, initially saying, “We have a great country." But it was an additional comment — “It’s such a great country that allows you to be here" — that infuriated Chauhan, who called Spicer's response "racism" in a post on Medium.
"That is racism and it is an implied threat. Think about the sheer audacity of Mr. Spicer to say that to my face with a smile, knowing that he that he is being recorded on video and the position of power he holds in our government," Chauhan, an Indian-American, said in her post of Spicer's comment.
Speaking to The Daily Mail, Chauhan disagreed with a suggestion that Spicer's comment was meant to be innocuous or about free speech.
"Don’t tell me what he probably meant because he also works for this administration that has done all of these things," she told the publication. "To have someone who speaks for the president of the United States tell me to my face that I shouldn’t be here and I was born here – that is a real thing."
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It echoes a point Chauhan made in her Medium post:
It’s one thing to have a Twitter egg tell say you do not belong in America, it is quite another to have the Press Secretary of the United States of America do so. I am still astounded. And while I am fearless, I wonder how this administration will use its power to silence ordinary people like me.
Neither Spicer nor the White House have publicly addressed the incident; Mashablehas reached out to the White House press office for comment.
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