Hillary Clinton is a pro at ducking 2016 questions. She’s apparently also good at ducking shoes.
A woman threw what appeared to be a shoe at the former secretary of state in Las Vegas, but the potential presidential contender moved out of the way, then joked about it, according to reports.
Clinton was a keynote speaker at a scrap recycling conference where the incident occurred. A woman was arrested on suspicion of throwing the object, according to The Associated Press and local press accounts.
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Mark Carpenter, a representative for the organization hosting the event —the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries —stressed that the woman “was not affiliated with our organization and was not credentialed for this event.”
“Our staff denied her access before she later rushed past security,” he continued in a statement. “An ISRI staffer then stopped her as she approached the stage. She was then handed over to law enforcement.”
The incident is reminiscent of a 2008 scene in which then-President George W. Bush ducked during a press conference in Baghdad when an Iraqi attendee threw two shoes at him.
A spokesman for Clinton didn’t immediately return a request for comment. But Clinton, speaking at the Mandalay Bay hotel, took the moment lightly.
“Is that somebody throwing something at me?” Clinton said, according to an account in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “Is that part of Cirque de Soleil?”
She added, referring to a subject of her speech, “My goodness, I didn’t know that solid waste management was so controversial … Thank goodness she didn’t play softball like I did.”
Since the incident in Baghdad, many protesters have thrown shoes at politicians around the world.
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