'This is embarrassing': Bob Good booted from Trump-themed store in Farmville

Rep. Bob Good was kicked out of a Trump-themed store in Farmville last weekend after a spat that led to a small police response.

The Prince Edward County Republican who represents Virginia’s 5th Congressional District in Congress says he was invited to the business’ grand opening on Feb. 17. The business owner says not only was Good not invited, he was explicitly told not to come. According to Karen Angulo, store owner and Trump campaign volunteer, Good is no “genuine Trump supporter” and was only there to “hijack” an event where his political adversary was in attendance.

Despite his long list of conservative bonafides, Good is being challenged on the right by state Sen. John McGuire of Goochland County. Good, who serves as chairman of the influential House Freedom Caucus and has been credited with taking down former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy for working with Democrats, has been criticized by fellow Republicans for not immediately endorsing Trump in his reelection campaign. Good first endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, then switched to Trump after DeSantis dropped out of the primary.

According to Angulo, McGuire, unlike Good, had her explicit permission to be in the store; she had agreed in advance to let McGuire use the South Main Street establishment for a “meet and greet.”

Good, on the other hand, was told the day before the grand opening not to come.

“We said, ‘Look, you’re just not invited,’” Angulo told The Daily Progress of a Feb. 16 phone conversation with Good. “But the next day, he shows up anyway with his consultants. And I honestly wonder if he was trying to provoke some incident with John McGuire.”

A video recording obtained by The Daily Progress shows Angulo confronting Good inside her store while McGuire stands in the background sporting a Trump baseball cap and speaking with another attendee.

Angulo asks Good to leave.

“Bob, seriously stop this. This is embarrassing, Bob,” Angulo can be heard telling Good.

The incident encapsulates McGuire’s pitch to voters in the 5th District: He is more closely aligned with former President Donald Trump than the incumbent.

“If you’re sick of Bob Good trying to intimidate constituents and stab President Trump and the MAGA movement in the back, vote McGuire,” the senator wrote in a statement after the Feb. 17 event.

McGuire also publicized the opening of Angulo’s store leading up to the grand opening, sending a text message to Republicans across the district the day before asking them to “please come support President Trump.” He promised free pizza and snacks at the “5th District Trump Store Grand Opening” and said that he would be visiting at noon.

“Add your signature to his petition to run for Congress!” the message concludes.

Good’s campaign claims the representative was among those who received the McGuire text the afternoon of Feb. 16. Good crafted his own invitation hours later.

“Please come support President Trump at the Trump Store,” reads a text from the Good campaign, which included a campaign donation link and a photo of Good standing with Trump. It also listed hours that Good would be attending, which bookended McGuire’s scheduled appearance.

“The intention was to avoid the time that was listed for when Senator McGuire would be there,” Good campaign director Diana Shores said in a statement to The Daily Progress.

When Angulo learned of the text, a colleague of hers reached out to Good.

“She called him and said, ‘Bob, what is this text? This is not your event. You’re not invited to this event. It’s a private event,’” Angulo recalled. “He kept saying it was a public space. It’s not a public space. It’s a private shop.”

Angulo’s store has been advertised as a “MAGA shop” selling Trump merchandise and serving as a gathering place for Trump supporters in Farmville.

When Good arrived at the store at 11 a.m. Saturday, he saw both Trump and McGuire campaign signage outside.

“He entered the store, intending to greet other Republicans and Trump supporters, and to shop for some Trump merchandise,” Shores wrote, adding that he was “confronted immediately” by Angulo.

Angulo recalls Good entering the store with two men, “one of them holding a camera already rolling.”

In the video, Good reads the McGuire text invitation to Angulo.

“Is this not a Trump store?” he asks Angulo. “Are you saying that only some Republicans are welcome?”

“I am saying that you do not have an invitation to hijack the store and actually interrupt another event that’s scheduled here,” she responds. “So I am asking you all to leave.”

Good did so minutes later.

Shores said people who appeared to be McGuire supporters and campaign staff were standing behind Angulo during the exchange, including Buckingham GOP Committee Chair Ramona Christian. Christian told The Daily Progress she was in the bathroom at the time and missed the entire interaction.

“It was clear to Congressman Good that this was a McGuire campaign event, masquerading as a Trump store event, for the purpose of getting folks there to sign Mr. McGuire’s petitions,” Shores wrote.

To get on the ballot, McGuire must collect signatures from 1,000 registered voters across the congressional district. His campaign is confident it will meet that mark. It also denies that McGuire’s Saturday appearance was a campaign event.

“Looks like a campaign event appearance to me,” Shores said. “He was gathering petitions inside and advertised it on his social media.”

According to Shores, Good left the store and stood on a public sidewalk until 3 p.m., greeting patrons and passersby.

Angulo characterized it differently. Good, she said, “wandered” the parking lot for hours while trying to “intercept” people.

“I mean that’s so embarrassing. It’s not the type of behavior you’d expect of any congressman,” she said. “That would be the behavior of a first-time candidate with not much political savvy, campaign savvy.”

Photos of the visit show police cars outside. Shores said her team followed “normal security protocols” by alerting local law enforcement that the representative would be at the event.

Shores also called police while standing outside the venue.

“Senator McGuire was in the building and sent 4 young men out to harass the Congressman,” Shores said, an accusation the McGuire campaign called “absolutely not true.”

“They were shouting, and waving signs, and when asked to respect the Congressman’s personal space, they refused.”

In a recording of the 911 call, Shores can be heard speaking to Good before asking for police assistance.

“There’s an officer who just passed us,” Shores told the operator. “If he could come back and talk to me that would be great, because there’s some belligerent people out here getting in the congressman’s personal space.”

The men left after police arrived, Shores said.

Later that day, Angulo resigned from her role as chair of the Appomattox Republican Committee. The decision was not related to the run-in with Good, she said. Rather, she said she made the decision after learning that another committee member was going to run against her.

Angulo said she believes the Good campaign encouraged that person to challenge her.

“Bob’s campaign people have been working to eliminate Trump-supporting committee chairs as well as discourage Trump supporters to be in committees,” Angulo said of her resignation. “I’m not going to fight this, because I want to take my time to support President Trump 100% of the time.”

Feb. 17 may have further widened a Republican schism in the 5th District, as two factions play a game of one-upsmanship over their allegiance to Trump.

The “Endorsements” section of Good’s campaign website is headlined by the former president, with a photograph of the two standing side by side. But the endorsement statement included is from the 2022 election, before Good endorsed Trump’s primary rival last May.

The Trump campaign did not respond when asked if it had endorsed Good’s campaign for reelection.

Not only did Good not endorse Trump immediately this time around, only doing so after DeSantis dropped out in January, but he took too long to endorse Trump in 2016 for some Republicans’ liking.

McGuire, meanwhile, traveled to Iowa to campaign with Trump during the Iowa caucus and claims to have never wavered in his support of the Republican leader.

“Never Trumper Bob Good opposed Donald Trump in 2016 and 2024, and MAGA Patriots across the 5th District are rightfully standing up to him,” McGuire wrote in a statement. “Trump can’t trust Bob Good, and neither can the people of this district.”

Angulo said she considers McGuire to be among the “genuine supporters” of Trump, someone who has backed Trump from the beginning. Good cannot say the same.

“Bob still kept Trump’s endorsement on his campaign webpage. And now that DeSantis has dropped out, suddenly he’s a full-throated supporter of Donald Trump?” she said. “I just don’t believe that. I just don’t.”