Millions of Americans attended thousands of “No Kings” events across the United States on Saturday to protest Donald Trump’s increasingly authoritarian presidency. It was one of the largest single-day protests in US history and came amid Trump’s brutal immigration raids and efforts to militarily occupy cities such as Chicago, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles.
Republicans may have inadvertently juiced turnout by constantly complaining and hysterically lying about the anti-Trump protests in recent days. House Speaker Mike Johnson kept calling the events the “Hate America rally.” Trump Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the No Kings events were “part of antifa,” the disparate anti-fascist movement that Trump wants to eliminate. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the events would feature the “the farthest left” and “the most unhinged in the Democratic Party.”
Conservative Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley claimed, with zero basis, that the No Kings rallies would be violent and that its funders should thus be investigated and prosecuted. Senior sources within the Trump administration told Zeteo that federal agencies would be monitoring the No Kings protests throughout the country, including the Hands Off Chicago marches, for any signs of what they called “domestic terrorism” or violent “extremism” that they could use as part of their efforts to clamp down on liberal non-profits and donors.
As you can see in the video above, at the huge Chicago rally that Zeteo’s Asawin Suebsaeng covered, there was no sign of any vast parade of antifa radicals or “terrorist” sympathizers that Republicans claimed would materialize this weekend. The multiple Chicago-area events instead represented the exact type of demonstration of solidarity and outrage that Team Trump wants Americans to believe isn’t possible: massive crowds of diverse and peaceful protesters nonviolently opposing Trump, standing against his federal shows of force against US cities.
An estimated 200,000 people turned out for the No Kings event in DC – where Zeteo’s editor-in-chief, Mehdi Hasan, spoke to the crowd. The event was safe and orderly, and felt like a parade or rally rather than a disruption. Protesters who spoke with Zeteo’s Prem Thakker expressed anger about Trump’s masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) thugs kidnapping immigrants and citizens alike. Attendees were also concerned about Trump’s attacks on free speech as well as Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Watch the video below:
Progressive Senator Bernie Sanders spoke at the DC event and warned that Trump is putting US democracy in danger with his attacks on immigrants, free speech, and the media. He spoke out against Trump’s efforts to consolidate “more and more power in his own hands and in the hands of his fellow oligarchs.”
Wannabe King?
The first round of No Kings protests took place in June, when Trump hosted his military birthday parade in DC. An estimated five million people attended those No Kings events, in what was one of the largest days of protest in US history. Organizers expected a similar number of people or even more would turn out this weekend. Indivisible, a group involved in the planning, announced that nearly seven million people attended the No Kings events on Saturday, calling it “the biggest single-day protest against tyranny in American history.”
The point of the No Kings protests, according to its organizers, is to show that “America has no kings, and the power belongs to the people.” The name wasn’t plucked from thin air: Trump’s White House previously described the president as “the king” on social media. (Trump also recently claimed that “a lot” of Americans would “like a dictator.”)
In the lead-up to the No Kings rallies, Trump tried to downplay the idea he sees himself as a king. “They’re referring to me as a king. I’m not a king,” he said in a Fox News interview clip released on Friday.
During the No Kings rallies on Saturday, however, Trump’s political team repeatedly posted images on X showing the president wearing a crown, and also posted an AI-generated video with Trump dressed in a monarch’s robes while standing at the White House.
Vice President J.D. Vance and Trump’s “crypto czar” David Sacks both shared an AI video showing Trump putting on a crown and robes and wielding a sword, and Democratic lawmakers bowing to him. Around 9:30 p.m. ET, Trump shared the video on Truth Social. It seems he is now openly fantasizing about being a king.
Team Trump may want Trump to be a king. The president may think his supporters want him to be a dictator. On Saturday, millions of Americans stood together to say: No Kings.
As Prem noted at the DC rally, if the sprawling crowd was filled with Marxists and antifa, as Speaker Johnson claimed, that means “the Republican Party is in a bit of hot water.”
Also, don’t miss Mehdi’s speech at the DC rally:
‘We Are The Majority’: Watch Mehdi’s Rousing Speech at the No Kings Protest in DC
Millions of people all across the US are taking to the streets today to reject President Donald Trump’s authoritarian agenda and join in on the second-round of the ‘No Kings’ protests. There are currently over 2,500 demonstrations across all 50 states and major US cities, including the nation’s capital: Washington, DC.
