Crowds hit the streets Saturday in cities and towns across the country to vent their anger over President Trump’s policies in “No Kings” protests, which Republicans have slammed as “Hate America” rallies.
People carrying signs with slogans such as “Nothing is more patriotic than protesting” or “Resist Fascism” packed into New York City’s Times Square and rallied by the thousands in parks in Boston, Atlanta and Chicago. Demonstrators marched through Washington and downtown Los Angeles and picketed outside capitols in several Republican-led states, a courthouse in Billings, Montana, and at hundreds of smaller public spaces.
Mr. Trump’s Republican Party disparaged the demonstrations as “Hate America” rallies, but in many places the events looked more like a street party. There were marching bands, huge banners with the U.S. Constitution’s “We The People” preamble that people could sign, and demonstrators wearing inflatable costumes, particularly frogs, which have emerged as a sign of resistance in Portland, Oregon.
More than 2,700 demonstrations were planned coast to coast, with at least one in every state and even near Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, where he is spending the weekend.
Organizers said the nationwide rally drew more people than similar events on June 14, which was Mr. Trump’s birthday and the day of a giant military parade in the U.S. capital, the No Kings Coalition said in a news release.
“The millions of people protesting are centered around a fierce love for our country. A country that we believe is worth fighting for,” said Katie Bethell, the executive director of MoveOn, an advocacy group that’s part of the larger coalition.
Protestors said they were outraged over the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented migrants and its deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles.
Since then, Mr. Trump — who returned to the White House in January — has ordered National Guard troops into Washington, D.C. and Memphis. Planned deployments to Chicago and Portland have so far been blocked in the courts.
Demonstrators are also upset over Mr. Trump’s attacks on the media, prosecutions of his political opponents and a host of other actions they see as authoritarian.
On its website, “No Kings” organizers say, “The president thinks his rule is absolute. But in America, we don’t have kings and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty.”
“This president is a disgrace and I hope there will be millions in the street today,” Stephanie, a 36-year-old hospital worker who did not give her last name, told AFP in the Queens borough of New York, where hundreds had already gathered in the morning.
Tens of thousands of people gathered in Portland for a peaceful demonstration downtown. Later in the day, tensions grew as a few hundred protesters and counterprotesters showed up at a U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement building, with federal agents at times firing tear gas to disperse the crowd and city police threatening to make arrests if demonstrators blocked streets.
The building has been the site of mostly small nightly protests since June — the reason the Trump administration has cited for trying to deploy National Guard troops in Portland, which a federal judge has at least temporarily blocked.
More than 10,000 people showed up at Lafitte Greenway for the No King New Orleans rally, organizers told CBS News. When asked about how numbers were counted, they said it was based on RSVPs online and other on-the-ground crowd-counting measures.
In Chicago’s Grant Park, Democratic Congresswoman Delia Ramirez led the crowd in a chant, “When I say people, you say power!”
“May that powerful voice be heard from here to Washington, D.C., and every corner of this country,” Ramirez said, CBS Chicago reported. “I am the proud daughter of Guatemalan immigrants, and I will never be ashamed of my roots.”
