{"id":390104,"date":"2018-12-22T07:08:30","date_gmt":"2018-12-22T06:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/man-climbing-national-christmas-tree-prompts-evacuation-near-white-house-rt-usa-news\/"},"modified":"2018-12-22T07:08:30","modified_gmt":"2018-12-22T06:08:30","slug":"man-climbing-national-christmas-tree-prompts-evacuation-near-white-house-rt-usa-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/man-climbing-national-christmas-tree-prompts-evacuation-near-white-house-rt-usa-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Man climbing National Christmas Tree prompts evacuation near White House \u2014 RT USA News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2018.12\/thumbnail\/5c1d94d3fc7e9335188b4568.JPG\" \/><\/p>\n<p>        As the government in Washington heads for a funding shutdown, a man climbed the National Christmas Tree outside the White House, causing a more literal kind of shutdown. Police had to close the area off and talk him down.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Around the time that the vice president broke a tie in a Senate vote on the spending bill that provides funding for Donald Trump&#8217;s border wall, an unidentified man set out climbing the National Christmas Tree just outside the White House.<\/p>\n<div class=\"rtcode\"><center><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">VIDEO: Climbing the National Christmas Tree<br \/>\u2022 Here we go, folks&#8230;<br \/>\u2022 Man seen climbing behind the National Christmas Tree lights<br \/>\u2022 Police on scene, trying to get him out<br \/>\u2022 The man has since climbed down, and is now at a hospital<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wusa9?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@WUSA9<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/breaking?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#breaking<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/NBnRQwmOqT\">pic.twitter.com\/NBnRQwmOqT<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Mike Valerio (@MikevWUSA) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MikevWUSA\/status\/1076285457682649093?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 22, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><center\/><\/center><\/div>\n<p>Police rushed to the scene, closed off the adjacent area, and dispatched a negotiator to bring the daredevil back down.<\/p>\n<p>Video from the scene showed a huge police presence near the public attraction.<\/p>\n<p>The man sat in the tree for about an hour before finally climbing down. Police said he <em>&#8220;self-extricated&#8221;<\/em> from the tree without needing any assistance.<\/p>\n<p>The man did not suffer any injuries, which cannot be said for the tree, with NBC4 reporting that some of its lights were damaged.<\/p>\n<p>National Park Service Sgt. Eduardo Delgado said that the man appeared to be experiencing <em>&#8220;emotional distress&#8221;<\/em> and was sent to hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.<\/p>\n<p>The man&#8217;s motives are unknown, though some jokingly suggested that he was protesting against the border wall legislation.<\/p>\n<div class=\"rtcode\"><center><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The fact that there\u2019s a police negotiator trying to convince a man to stop climbing the national Christmas tree truly geeks me lol<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 2016 (@DaniBeijing) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DaniBeijing\/status\/1076266008401321989?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 21, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><center\/><\/center><\/div>\n<p>Another witty Twitter user remarked that, with all the pre-Christmas madness in Washington, climbing the iconic tree is <em>&#8220;the least weirdest thing.&#8221;<br \/><\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"rtcode\"><center><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">And yet, a guy climbing the Christmas tree is the *least* weirdest thing in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Marc Quill (@MarcQuill) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MarcQuill\/status\/1076258121012703234?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 21, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><center\/><\/center><\/div>\n<p>Meanwhile, police said that access to the tree would be prevented for the entire night.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/447187-christmas-tree-washington-climbed\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=RSS\">RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the government in Washington heads for a funding shutdown, a man climbed the National Christmas Tree outside the White House, causing a more literal kind of shutdown. Police had to close the area off and talk him down. Around the time that the vice president broke a tie in a Senate vote on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":390105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-390104","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}