NEW DELHI, Mar 29: Large crowds took to streets on Saturday in the United States and Europe against the US President Donald Trump’s actions in Iran.
The “No Kings” rallies witnessed huge crowds, with Minnesota taking the centre stage to celebrate resistance to Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement. US organisers have estimated that the first two rounds of No Kings rallies drew more than 5 million people in June and 7 million in October. This week they told reporters they expected 9 million participants on Saturday, though it was too early to tell whether those expectations were met.
Organisers said more than 3,100 events, 500 more than in October, were registered, in all 50 states. Protests were mostly peaceful, but federal authorities deployed tear gas “due to demonstrators throwing large concrete blocks, bottles and other objects” in downtown Los Angeles, police said on the social platform X. They 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.
The White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson labelled 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.
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.”
(Manas Dasgupta)