Anti-Trump rallies sweep across US and world as huge crowds turn up in No Kings protests
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Anti-Trump rallies sweep across US and world as huge crowds turn up in No Kings protests")
Protesters march in the No Kings protest on Saturday in Chicago, Illinois. Photograph: (AFP)
Donald Trump’s allies are accusing the protesters of being allied with the far-left Antifa movement and condemned the protest as “the hate America rally”. Meanwhile, Republican governors in several US states placed National Guard troops on standby.
Hundreds of thousands of people hit the roads in protests against President Donald Trump in more than 2,500 rallies organised coast-to-coast across the US on Saturday. Crowds crammed Times Square for the event organised by No Kings, a coalition of left-leaning groups. Demonstrations under the banner in June attracted over five million people nationwide. Trump allies are accusing the protesters of being allied with the far-left Antifa movement and condemned the protest as “the hate America rally”. Republican governors in several US states even placed National Guard troops on standby. The protest organisers say the gathering will challenge Trump’s “authoritarianism”.
‘The president thinks his rule is absolute. But in America, we don’t have kings’
“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,” they said.
Protesters in Europe also took to the streets in Berlin, Madrid, and Rome to show solidarity with their American counterparts.
“A king! This is not an act. You know—they’re referring to me as a king. I’m not a king,” Trump said in a preview clip of the Fox News interview set to air on Sunday.
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Texas Governor Greg Abbott activated the state’s National Guard ahead of a protest in the state’s capital, Austin, and said the troops would be needed due to the “planned Antifa-linked demonstration”.
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Denouncing the move, the state’s top Democrat, Gene Wu, said, “Sending armed soldiers to suppress peaceful protests is what kings and dictators do—and Greg Abbott just proved he’s one of them.”
Earlier this week, actor Robert De Niro, a Trump critic, shared a short video urging Americans to join in raising our voices non-violently. “We’ve had two and a half centuries of democracy... often challenging, sometimes messy, always essential,” he said.
“Now we have a would-be king who wants to take it away: King Donald the First.”
On its website, ‘No Kings’ organisers 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.”
Protests took place in Washington, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, and New Orleans, and small towns across all 50 states.
Crowds collect outside US embassies
Crowds gathered outside US embassies in Berlin, Rome, Paris, and Sweden in solidarity with the protesters in the US, holding signs denouncing fascism and dictatorships. Top Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer encouraged demonstrators to let their voices be heard.
“I say to my fellow Americans this No Kings Day: Do not let Donald Trump and Republicans intimidate you into silence. That’s what they want to do. They’re afraid of the truth,” he wrote on X.
Since taking office, Trump has accelerated immigration crackdowns, threatened to cut federal funding for universities over pro-Palestinian protests and diversity policies, and authorised the deployment of National Guard troops in several states.
