'Ruining the country': Ivanka Trump verbally abused while on flight with her children
America's future first daughter copped a barrage of verbal harassment on a flight from one man who accused her father of "ruining the country" before he was booted from the plane.
Ivanka Trump was sitting with her three children on a JetBlue flight at New York's JFK Airport when a man holding his own child approached her.
"Why is she on our flight?" asked Dan Goldstein, a lawyer from Brooklyn, according to TMZ.
"Your father is ruining the country," he then said, adding the 35-year-old "should be flying private".
Ivanka was indeed flying coach with JetBlue as that is the only possible way she could go from New York to Palm Beach in Florida by plane, Daily Mail reports.
Ivanka and her family are said to be spending Christmas with at Mar-a-Lago, a resort owned by her father President-elect Donald Trump.
ABC US suggests she and her family – including husband Jared Kushner, who reportedly stood in the aisle during the incident – were headed to Hawaii.
But the future first daughter tried to ignore the man, instead turning her attention to her children while JetBlue staff intervened to escort him from the plane.
As he was being removed, Mr Goldstein shouted "You're kicking me off for expressing my opinion?!"
On Twitter, Mr Goldstein's husband Matthew Lasner leapt to his defence.
"My husband expressed his displeasure in a calm tone, JetBlue staff overheard, and they kicked us off the plane," his tweet said.
But even that narrative changed from Mr Lasner's earlier tweets, which an hour earlier stated his husband had spotted Ivanka and her family in the terminal and was "chasing them down to harass them. #banalityofevil."
Mr Lasner's Twitter account has since been deleted.
The future first daughter's Secret Service detail was reportedly aboard the flight but did not intervene, instead leaving the situation to be safely handled by JetBlue staff.
JetBlue released a statement after the incident on Thursday morning, saying the "decision to remove a customer from a flight is not taken lightly".
"If the crew determines that a customer is causing a conflict on the aircraft, the customer will be asked to deplane, especially if the crew feels the situation runs the risk of escalation during flight.
"Our team worked to re-accommodate the party on the next available flight," the statement said.
Mr Lasner, an architecture academic, has never been a fan of Trump, having previously tweeted "#notmypresident".
