Millions protested against President Donald Trump and the war in Iran, which they termed as “No Kings” rallies, across the United States and Europe as well. The epicentre was Minnesota, with thousands of people standing shoulder to shoulder in resistance to Trump's aggressive immigration enforcement.
Minnesota's flagship event on the Capitol lawn in St. Paul drew Bruce Springsteen as its headliner. He and other speakers praised the state's people for taking to the streets over the winter in opposition to a surge of U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement agents. People rallied from New York City, with almost 8.5 million residents in a solidly blue state, to Driggs, a town of fewer than 2,000 people in eastern Idaho, a state Trump carried with 66 per cent of the vote in 2024.
Large, but mostly peaceful, crowds —
Protests were mostly peaceful, but federal authorities did deploy tear gas “due to demonstrators throwing large concrete blocks, bottles, and other objects” in downtown Los Angeles, Police said on the social platform X.
LAPD also said protesters were later arrested for failing to disperse.
Earlier in Topeka, Kansas, a rally outside the Statehouse had people impersonating a frog king and Trump as a baby. Wendy Wyatt drove with “Cats Against Trump” sign from Lawrence, 20 miles to the east, and planned to drive back to her hometown for a later rally there.
Wyatt said “There are so many things” about the Trump administration that upset her, but “this is very hopeful to me.”
GOP officials dismissive of protests—
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson characterised them as the product of “leftist funding networks” with little real public support. The “only people who care about these Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them,” Jackson said in a statement.
The National Republican Congressional Committee was also sharply critical.
“These Hate America Rallies are where the far-left's most violent, deranged fantasies get a microphone,” NRCC spokesperson Maureen O'Toole said.
Protesters’ reasons to protest —
Trump's immigration enforcement push, particularly in Minnesota, was just one item on a long list of protester grievances that also included the war in Iran and the rollback of transgender rights. Speakers at the Minnesota rally decried billionaires' economic power.
In Washington, hundreds marched past the Lincoln Memorial and into the National Mall, holding signs that read “Put down the crown, clown” and “Regime change begins at home.” Demonstrators rang bells, banged drums, and chanted “No kings.” Bill Jarcho was there from Seattle, joined by six people dressed as insects wearing tactical vests that said, “LICE”, spoofing ICE, as part of what he called a “mock and awe” tour.
“What we provide is mockery to the king,” Jarcho said. “It's about taking authoritarianism and making fun of it, which they hate.” About 40,000 people marched in San Diego, police there said.
In New York, Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said during a news conference that Trump and his supporters want people to be afraid to protest.
“They want us to be afraid that there's nothing we can do to stop them. But you know what? They are wrong — dead wrong.”
Organisers said two-thirds of RSVPs for the rallies came from outside of major urban centers. That included communities in conservative-leaning states like Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, South Dakota, and Louisiana, as well as in electorally competitive suburbs in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona.
Protesters held up a massive sign on the Capitol steps that read, “We had whistles, they had guns. The revolution starts in Minneapolis.”
“Donald Trump may pretend that he's not listening, but he can't ignore the millions in the streets today,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.
Rallies in over a dozen other countries—
Demonstrations were also planned in more than a dozen other countries, from Europe to Latin America to Australia, according to Ezra Levin, a co-executive director of Indivisible, a group spearheading the events. In countries with constitutional monarchies, people call the protests “No Tyrants,” he said.
In Rome, thousands marched with chants aimed at Premier Giorgia Meloni, whose conservative government saw its referendum for streamlining Italy's judiciary fail badly this week. Protesters also waved banners protesting Israeli and US attacks on Iran.
In London, demonstrators held banners with slogans such as “Stop the far right” and “Stand up to Racism.” And in Paris, several hundred people, mostly Americans living in France, along with labor unions and human rights organizations, gathered at the Bastille.
“I protest all of Trump's illegal, immoral, reckless, and feckless, endless wars,” organizer Ada Shen said.
Follow us
