Oakland-based animal rights activist Aiden Cook recently interrupted California Senator Kamala Harris during a speech in San Francisco.
Harris was about to answer a question when Cook walked onto the stage, grabbed the microphone and started talking.
“We’re asking for a much bigger idea than –” he said before the microphone was cut and he was escorted off the stage, said a report in EcoWatch.
Cook is affiliated with Direct Action Everywhere, an animal rights group, which recently received a restraining order as it protested a Whole Foods store in Berkeley, CA. DxE is also known for harassing restaurant customers by throwing fake blood around the establishments.
“I live in Oakland and I'm one of Kamala Harris' constituents. I came to the MoveOn Big Ideas Forum today because there's one big idea that all of the 2020 presidential candidates are ignoring. Which is that by raising and slaughtering billions of animals every year, not only are we completely … undermining our values as a nation of compassionate animal lovers but we are literally preparing to drive our society off a cliff. Animal agriculture is one of the leading causes of climate change,” Cook told POLITICO.
DxE said in a press release that Cook's interruption was timed with a San Francisco animal rights march Saturday. Cook wanted Harris to defend the rights of activists to rescue animals from factory farms.
“Progressive candidates should be advocating for vulnerable populations, not abusive corporations,” DxE co-founder and former Northwestern law professor Wayne Hsiung said in the release. “Families of ordinary Americans are being endangered, and whistleblowers who expose criminal violations are being targeted. The typical voter — especially in the Democratic Party — doesn't approve, so we're asking for the party to end its support for corporate Big Ag.”
