Congressman Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey wrote a letter to the Department of the Interior, which oversees US national parks, criticizing the vigil.

wrote in the letter. “This isn’t ‘free speech.’ This is a failure of enforcement.”


A correspondent for the conservative network Real America’s Voice, Brian Glenn, asked Trump about the vigil on Friday. “Just out front of the White House is a blue tent that originally was put there to be an anti-nuclear tent for nuclear arms – it’s kind of morphed into an anti-America sometimes, anti-Trump at many times,” he said. Trump replied that he didn’t know about the tent and then turned to staff to say: “Take it down, right now.”

Will Roosien, a 24-year-old who had been volunteering at the vigil, told the Washington Post that officers arrived at 6.30am and told him he had 30 minutes to remove a tarp under which he had been sheltering from the rain. He refused and told the Post he was detained while the officers dismantled the tent.

“This is a disgrace, and you should all feel ashamed,” Roosien told the officers, according to video obtained by the Post. “Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for 44 years, someone has sat here, advocating for people around the world who we don’t know. Advocating for human rights. Advocating for peace.”

The vigil’s longest-serving steward, 63-year-old Philipos Melaku-Bello, told the Post that volunteers had partially rebuilt the vigil. Melaku-Bello told Law Dork, an independent news outlet, that he expected the battle over the vigil to wind up in court.