In late July, an employee at a Northwest D.C. coffee shop made a comment about a customer’s Trump 2020 pin. Three days later, following the customer’s complaint and scrutiny directed towards the restaurant, the employee was fired, though she and her boss disagree about why.

The employee, Hannah, characterizes her termination as “damage control” for her employer, while Shannon Trexler, a representative of Open City, says that “this is the second incident where this employee put her own personal perceptions before work while on shift.”

Hannah—who asked to be identified only by her first name because she fears retaliation from “right wing trolls” over the incident—had been working at Open City at the National Cathedral for six months when she says two women came into the cafe on July 26 and placed their orders. “We were joking, we were laughing,” says Hannah, 22, of the interaction, which was first reported by Washington City Paper. Then, Hannah says, she noticed the Trump 2020 pin one woman was sporting on her backpack.

“I continued to serve her, but I just stopped smiling,” Hannah says. When the woman asked her what was wrong, Hannah responded, “I don’t appreciate you wearing that pin,” according to her and the customer’s account. Hannah says the two women sat down, and asked the manager for a refund when he delivered their food. As Hannah’s manager was processing their refund, one of the women called Hannah’s comment “discrimination.”

“As a queer, low-income woman, it’s funny to me that you would think this is discrimination,” Hannah says she responded. As she explains to DCist, “I was trying to contextualize that there are groups that I am a part of who do face material discrimination.”

The two women left. The woman who was wearing the pin, Jax Johanning, later posted a Facebook Live video detailing the incident and, in a second post, warned people against patronizing Open City.

Johanning’s account, which she shared with DCist, is largely similar to Hannah’s, with a few differences: She remembers Hannah saying she was a “queer, single female,” when they spoke, and raising her voice as she did so. (“That’s wonderful and good for you,” Johanning remembers thinking. “But I don’t know what that has to do with my sandwich.”) She also describes Hannah as seeming “gleeful” as she watched Johanning and her friend leave. Johanning, who was in town last month visiting from Mico, Texas, says she was particularly disappointed in the way Hannah’s manager reacted when she told him what had happened. According to Johanning, he told her that Open City employs people from “every walk of life … and this administration has not been kind to them,” and that “we try to be tolerant of everyone’s views.”

Johanning, 45, acknowledges that “D.C., especially, is a politically charged environment right now.” Still, she says the situation would have ended if the manager had told her, “she’s entitled to her views, you’re entitled to your views, but that shouldn’t impact the customer experience, I will speak to her.” The manager has not responded to a request for comment. Johanning says that she was “not looking to get anybody fired. I want them to grow and develop.”

Open City is the latest D.C. food establishment to deal with confrontations over political disagreements. Just weeks before Hannah commented on her customer’s pin, a patron says he was kicked out of Hill Country Barbecue Market in Penn Quarter after confronting a diner wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat. In other instances, political figures have faced the ire of demonstrators while dining out. Last year, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Republican Senator Ted Cruz were heckled while out at MXDC Cocina Mexicana and Fiola, respectively.

Johanning’s Facebook Live video, which has racked up more than 900 views, picked up about a dozen comments, including one that says of Open City, “Burn it to the ground.” Johanning also says one of her Facebook friends posted a phone number for Open City. When Johanning called later, she was told that Open City had been “inundated with calls” about the incident at the National Cathedral. She later removed the comment with Open City’s phone number.

Johanning and her friend also relayed the incident to the National Cathedral visitors center, who brought it to Shannon Trexler, operations manager of Tryst Trading Company, which operates Open City and a handful of other D.C. restaurants. The company has leased space for Open City at the Cathedral since 2014, but the church does not manage the location.

“We at Open City at the National Cathedral want our cafe to be as open and accessible as our name implies, where everyone is welcomed and nobody is turned away—especially over a political disagreement,” the cafe said in a Facebook post about the incident, adding that they were investigating and considering disciplinary action. (Trexler says she is not aware of any threats made against the cafe.)

Meanwhile, Hannah was taken off the schedule for the weekend by a different manager, according to emails provided to DCist. In a meeting with that manager on Monday, Hannah was fired from Open City. Hannah says she was told by the manager that threats had been made against the cafe, and that she was being fired for violating core values of the company outlined to her when she was hired.

Trexler says that Hannah was fired, but not just for this recent incident with the pin. In March, she says, Hannah slipped a note to a customer, informing her that her dining companion was an alleged rapist. According to Trexler, Hannah was disciplined at the time, which Hannah disputes. Her firing now isn’t political, Trexler says—it’s in response to the fact that this is her second offense.

“The topic of her interaction with the guest, honestly, has nothing to do with the decision to terminate her,” Trexler says. “Tryst Trading Company is not taking a political side in this. We’re dealing with a disciplinary action of a singular employee, based on her employment history.” Trexler confirms that disclosing or discussing political views is not specifically prohibited for employees.

But Hannah says that’s not how it was explained to her as she was being fired. “The way that it was communicated to me in my firing [made me feel] that they were doing immediate damage control,” Hannah says. According to her, she wasn’t even aware that higher-ups at Tryst Trading Company were familiar with the March incident. “I was not issued any disciplinary action,” says Hannah, saying that manager repeatedly told her, “We’re so sorry it happened,” and expressed “that they were on my side.” Emails Hannah shared with DCist from March back up this claim.

The manager who fired Hannah has not responded for requests for comment.

Hannah says that since she lost her job last week, she hasn’t heard from anyone in management at Tryst Trading Company.

“Ultimately, if I was fired for both of those things, then I was still fired for standing up to a rapist and standing up to a Trump supporter,” Hannah says. “I have never just gone off at random customers.”

Hannah was fired on July 29, just one day before the National Cathedral released a statement condemning President Trump’s “violent, dehumanizing” comments about Maryland Representative Elijah Cummings and the city of Baltimore. “Make no mistake about it, words matter,” the statement reads. “And, Mr. Trump’s words are dangerous.”