Iranian neuroscientist and his girlfriend are abused on New York subway by man who said 'Trump is in the house'

A Neuroscientist from Iran, Masih Rahmati and his girlfriend Mahsa Mehrdad suffered abuse at the hands of a man who racially abused them and yelled death threats saying 'Trump is in the house'. Ms Mehrdad filmed the latter part of the exchange and posted the shocking video on Facebook. During the tirade, the man said:

'Go back to your own country', 'Donald Trump is in the house' and 'I'll kill all three of you at one time'. Ms Mehdrad posted an account of the shocking encounter on Facebook along with the video.

She wrote:

'We noticed him getting on the train at 42nd St because he was looking at us hatefully and grumbling something under his breath.  'When the train got less crowded at 59th St, he started cursing loudly the whole way till 125th St. I only captured the last minute but he said several times that he would kill us right then and there because we were terrorists. 

'We tried to stay calm and ignore him. The whole experience was sad and shocking and brought a question to my mind. 'What should we do in a situation like this? Should we remain silent or should we do something? What is a proper action to shut down racist comments while not escalating the situation?' Local media reports that the couple were going to make a formal report to the police but were advised the man was unlikely to face prosecution because he looked mentally unstable.