Thursday, 27 Feb 2025

'MAGA' dress designer forced to remove Trump signs from business, residence when 'Karen' called the police

Dress designer and Filipino immigrant Andre Soriano was forced to remove Trump signs from his business when a local woman called the police.


'MAGA' dress designer forced to remove Trump signs from business, residence when 'Karen' called the police
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"I actually started a flag war here in Occoquan, Virginia," Soriano told Fox News Digital during a video interview.

Soriano said though the first few moments of the encounter were pleasant, almost immediately, he was met with irrationality and backlash about the patriotic decor perched at the front of the store.

"The reason I put my Trump dress outside is, so I don't have to encounter [this]," Soriano said.

Audra Johnson, a political activist and friend of Soriano, recorded the run in and posted it to social media after he texted her for help with the scene.

"I have a video of her hiding in a bush," Johnson told Fox News Digital. "I don't know what she was doing."

The duo said the woman was hysterically crying in the street and that she did call the police. A lone officer removed the woman from the store's entrance and Johnson said she was taken to a local restaurant to "calm her down".

"As an American citizen, as a First Amendment in our great nation, you can express yourself by putting your signs in your home and expressing who you are as an individual, whether it's religion, whether it's politics or anything that you feel, without harming anyone," Soriano said. "That's just the freedom of artistic expression and being free in America, and nowadays, you can't even express that."

However, they were cited a second time to remove some, but not all, the signs.

"We're just trying our hardest to not get fines we can't pay," Johnson said.

"We follow rules," Soriano said. "We don't disrespect anyone."

The business owner is appalled by the ordinance as he believes America is the "land of the free, not the land of what people think."

"I'm an American designer," Soriano said. "I am free to express and create whatever I want."

Soriano, originally from the Philippines, said his mother immigrated the family to America when he was a teenager to live the American Dream.

"I love America," Soriano said.

"That's when our lives changed," he said. "We had death threats."

"There are a lot of celebrities in Hollywood that are very divisive, and they didn't really like President Trump," Soriano said.

The creative director added that he lost his friends, clients and potential business opportunities in California.

Johnson was also blacklisted as a stage and film actress when she was photographed marching at Rosa Parks Circle in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with a sign that read "Trump is your president."

"We don't fit the mold."

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