Ex-Obama Press Secretary Calls for Secret Service Protection for Sanders, Biden

Democratic presidential hopeful former Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill watch as a dairy protester is apprehended. Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images

A press secretary of former President Barack Obama said that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Vice President Joe Biden need U.S. secret service protection after protesters entered the stage during a Biden rally on Super Tuesday.

“Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden need secret service protection,” former press secretary Robert Gibbs said. “What happened tonight was nothing short of genuinely scary.”

“They should have secret service protection in the next 24 to 48 hours,” Gibbs said on MSNBC.

On Tuesday night, Biden’s speech rally was interrupted by anti-dairy industry protesters and got within a few feet of the former vice president. The organization Direct Action Everywhere, which opposes the dairy industry, also protested and disrupted a Sanders rally in Nevada as some of the protesters went topless.

During the Biden rally incident, according to video footage, his wife Jill physically inserted herself between the candidate and the protesters. His campaign adviser, Symone Sanders, also rushed at the second protester and grabbed the woman before taking her off the stage.

“We’re OK,” said Jill Biden after the protesters were removed. “We’re OK.”

The protest came as Biden was celebrating taking home a significant number of delegates during the Super Tuesday contests. “It’s a good night. It’s a good night,” Joe Biden said. “It seems to be getting better. They don’t call it Super Tuesday for nothing.”

Sanders posted on Twitter after the incident: “I broke a nail.”

Biden won Alabama, Arkansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Virginia. Biden is also projected to have won Texas and Tennessee.

Sanders, meanwhile, won in California, which has the most delegates, as well as Vermont, Utah, and Colorado.