CLEVELAND — Cleveland had been bracing for Donald Trump supporters’ planned “Days of Rage” for months, but the anti-GOP protesters appear to have posed a greater challenge for law enforcement on Monday.
#ResistRNC demo climbing over a barricade that Cleveland police put on this groups PERMITTED route
Anti-RNC protesters were spotted leaping barricades and chanting, “Whose street? Our street!”
In a different location, Trump ally Roger Stone’s “Days of Rage” morphed into a jubilant “America First” rally celebrating Trump’s rise to becoming the presumptive GOP nominee. The event featured a teenager named Cait singing praises for Trump, and pro-Trump Alex Jones whipping the crowd into a frenzy against “the establishment.”
When Jones began whipping the crowd into a froth, an agitator sought to disrupt Jones, a conspiracy theorist. The agitator, who appeared to be comedian Eric Andre, fell into a group of rally-goers guarding the stage.
Trump supporter and agitator get into an apparent altercation while Alex Jones shouts pic.twitter.com/OKGRa6L2Jx— Ryan Lovelace (@LovelaceRyanD) July 18, 2016
Samuel Montoya, who can be seen wearing the red “Make America Great Again” hat in the above video, said he heard Andre plotting to antagonize Trump supporters when Jones took the stage and sought to interrupt him.
Montoya traveled from Texas to attend the festivities in Cleveland in support of Trump and was one of several former supporters of libertarian Kentucky senator Rand Paul who attended the “America First” rally in support of Trump.
“When he first came out, I guess like everybody, I thought he was a joke. I initially supported Rand Paul because I was a big supporter of Ron Paul,” Montoya said. “But after hearing the different things that Trump had to say, I think he’s the man for the job. I think he’s the man for this time.”
When Stone finally took the stage, he dispensed with rhetoric about disclosing anti-Trump delegates’ hotel room numbers and struck a triumphant tone.
“I have never seen a grassroots uprising, an insurrection, by the American people who realize that this election is unlike any other election that we have seen,” Stone said. “This is not the Republicans versus the Democrats. This is the elites of the Republican and Democratic Party who have driven this country into the ditch versus Donald J. Trump and the rest of America.”
