Baby Trump balloon slasher: ‘Gotta take a stand’
Hoyt Hutchinson, the man charged with slashing open a giant Baby Trump balloon with a knife outside the AlabamaLSU game Saturday in Tuscaloosa, told a radio show Monday that he took action because “it comes a point when you gotta take a stand.”
Hutchinson, who is charged with first-degree criminal mischief and is free on bond, called into the Rick & Bubba Show on Monday, telling the syndicated program his initial impulse was to drive past the protesters’ balloon and yell.
“I got so fired up when I rolled by the balloon and I rolled my window down and I said something to them and I figured they saw me. I figured only way I was going to get close enough to that balloon was to blend in. [So I] went and bought me an Alabama shirt and walked up like I was just walking to the game and like I was going to take a picture with [the balloon],” he said. “I was so fired up, man. I was shaking, I was so mad.”
In a Facebook video he posted after being free on bond, Hutchinson said he’d “do it again if given the opportunity.” He further explained to host Rick Burgess on Monday that he acted because he was angered by people who won’t take a stand.
“I’m not young, but I’m not old. I’m kind of middle aged. I feel like a lot of people my age don’t keep up with the news and politics like they should. I watch the news every night. I watch Fox News every night. Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity are my favorite two anchors,” he said. “I see this stuff going on out West and up north and all other places. I get so mad about people not taking a stand. The left wants to kind of use religion against you like you shouldn’t act like this and stuff, but I’ll tell you this — the Devil knows the Bible as good as we do.”
A bricklayer by trade, Hutchinson, 32, said he is working in a factory now. Burgess asked if his response to the balloon was a “turning over of the temple tables” moment, referring to the story of Jesus upending tables of the money changers.
“It comes a point when you gotta take a stand. We don’t have two parties anymore. We have good vs. evil,” he replied.
He added that when he heard protesters chanting, “Lock him up,” in reference to Trump, “I walked by and said, ‘Lock this up.’ ”
In the Facebook live video posted after he was released Saturday, Hutchinson said as he stood in front of a TV with the game playing: “Some liberals tried to come to my hometown and start some trouble. That ain’t happening. I did get arrested. I got charged. That’s all right. I’d do it again given the opportunity.”
Upon his release, Hutchinson created a GoFundMe account titled “Restitutions for Baby Trump Stabber” and as of Monday afternoon, he had raised over $40,000, far exceeding his $6,000 goal. Hutchinson promised on Facebook to donate whatever is left after his legal expenses “to the Republican Party.”