MONTPELIER — A Republican Flag Day gathering in front of the Vermont Statehouse ended in a frosting fiasco Saturday after a cake was destroyed and a man was shoved.
The intention of the gathering was to celebrate “Flag Day, the 250th Anniversary of the U.S. Army, (and) President Donald Trump’s 79th Birthday!” according to the Vermont Republican Party’s online calendar. The celebration was scheduled to start just an hour after the anti-Trump “No Kings” protest hosted in the same location.
The event was hosted by Gregory Thayer, a notable Republican voice in Vermont politics who ran against Lt. Gov. John Rodgers in last year’s Republican primary.
The violence began when Matthew Baker came up to the table as Thayer was speaking and smushed his water bottle into the cake that read “Happy Birthday U.S Flag, U.S. Army + President Trump.” Thayer then turned and shoved the man, as other pro-Trump attendees rushed to Thayer’s aid. Thayer then threw the water bottle, which struck Baker’s chest.
“He smashed the cake with a water bottle. I grabbed him to push him away, and then I walked away ’cause other people converged on him. Then, the water bottle was sitting in the middle of the cake and I gave him back his water bottle. That’s pretty much it,” Thayer said.
“I just dipped this in their cake, and then they grabbed the bottom and threw it at me, in the chest,” Baker said. “I wanted to see how they would react, and I got what I expected, violence. I got this bottle thrown at me.”
Security officers separated the men, and police officers showed up promptly after the initial cake-clash.
Despite the bottle, the cake was still served, though the event ended about 10 minutes early.
The event started peacefully enough, with Thayer and around 30 pro-Trump supporters in attendance gathered around a table with a microphone and the cake.
The peace was short-lived, however, as minutes into the event the first arguments started. A young woman in a pink shirt and a man in a fireman’s jacket holding a Trump 2024 flag began to argue about immigration.
Then, a woman holding a “Chinga La Migra” poster who was a stayover from the prior “No Kings” rally ran around to distract pro-Trump speakers, who returned with chants like “Becca Balint get in line, learn to wipe your own behind!”
Arguments between event attendees and anti-Trump protesters punctuated the entirety of the event.
As tensions escalated between the pro and anti-Trump groups, Thayer made a move toward civility by calling up an older, liberal woman to the microphone.
The woman asked attendees to find someone with whom they disagreed but could have a reasonable conversation with. It appeared neither crowd was listening, though, as both sides shouted over the woman — at one point while she was speaking, someone let off an airhorn — when she asked attendees to put their hands on their head if they thought her proposition was a good idea. Only she and Thayer did so.
Tonya Cicio attended the event to celebrate President Trump’s birthday and the 250th anniversary of the U.S. army, as her son is in the Navy.
“We’ve been supporting Trump since before the election … There’ll never be another president like him again — never,” Cicio said.
