Food Vendor Harassed by Former Obama Adviser Becomes NYC Celebrity
NEW YORK—A 24-year-old street food vendor on New York City’s Upper East Side, has become something of an overnight celebrity after facing relentless harassment from a former senior U.S. official on camera.
On Tuesday, shocking videos emerged of Stuart Seldowitz, a national security adviser under President Obama who also served as deputy director of the U.S. State Department’s Office of Israel and Palestinian Affairs from 1999 to 2003, hurling Islamophic insults at the vendor in three separate clips, apparently taken on different occasions.
Mohammed, who declined to share his last name, was too busy serving a very long line of lunch customers to say much, but told The Daily Beast that there has been an outpouring of support since the video went viral. A throng of reporters—some typing away on laptops at a folding table adjacent to the cart—and several TV news crews were stationed nearby.