Pro-Trump ‘Internet Provocateur’ Disrupts SF Democratic Headquarters

On the final night of the contentious presidential campaign, a pro-Trump social media influencer caused a disruption at the San Francisco Democratic Party headquarters, leading to a tense altercation as he was escorted out.

A video circulating on social media shows a heated exchange between party staffers and Danny Mullen, whose YouTube channel has more than 800,000 subscribers, and another man. The men are dressed in American flag shirts, MAGA hats and a Trump flag, which is worn like a cape.

“It really was disruptive to the operations in our headquarters,” said Nancy Tung, the chair of the Democratic County Central Committee. “People are there to work. Volunteers are there to make phone calls into our battleground states and congressional districts.”

While there’s little doubt San Francisco voters will go for the Bay Area’s own Kamala Harris, the disruption at the party’s Market Street office — the city’s center for national, state-level and local campaigning for Democratic candidates — inflamed Election Day tensions over the potential for confrontations. Mullen, whose videos often latch on to right-wing conspiracy theories and rile up progressives, recently posted clips of him “schooling brainwashed protesters” at UCLA and another “fighting migrant crime” in New York City.

“He’s kind of like an internet provocateur,” Tung told KQED. “He goes into situations where he tries to get a rise out of people by taking extreme positions and knowing that they are extreme positions to whoever he’s talking to.”

In a video posted by the San Francisco Standard, Mullen and another man are seen in the headquarters’ doorway, arguing with volunteers and staff. They arrived around 4:15 p.m. Monday and said they were there to “convert people,” according to Tung.

She said Mullen was also with a woman he said was formerly unhoused and questioned why there was so much feces on San Francisco’s streets.

Staff and volunteers called for them to “leave the premises” and accused Mullen and his supporters of trespassing, and eventually, Tung and others got them to leave.

Tung said that the six or so weeks San Francisco Democrats have spent in their headquarters have been pretty smooth, but safety is still top of mind.

“Our volunteers are not naive to the environment that we’re in,” Tung said. “Obviously, they feel very strongly about making sure that we elect a qualified candidate, Kamala Harris, as the president.”

The altercation could foreshadow what’s to come as results stream on Tuesday night and throughout the week.

Law enforcement agencies and universities around the Bay Area are making preparations for political unrest, which is likely no matter which way the presidential contest goes.

Across the state, jurisdictions are already struggling to retain staff and calm tensions as “self-appointed election observers” with clipboards and notepads watch officials count mail-in and early ballots. In Shasta County, about half of the registrar’s 21 employees have quit over the hostile environment.

The 2020 and 2022 elections were met with mass protests from election deniers, and former President Donald Trump — along with many Republican representatives — still denies that he lost the 2020 presidential race. This time, he’s gone on the offensive about alleged election fraud, starting an “election integrity effort” and encouraging supporters to observe vote counting.

Various news organizations have warned that Trump’s remarks at closing rallies have laid the foundation for denying the results of Tuesday’s race.

Last week, he told a crowd in Arizona that the “only thing that can stop us is the cheating.” In Pennsylvania, he’s saying thousands of “fraudulent” mail-in ballot applications and voter registration forms have been sent in by a “third-party group.” He’s not said whether he will accept the election results.

For Mullen’s part, following a series of clips of Monday’s altercation, he posted on Instagram a photo with the caption “more tomorrow.”