Mass ‘No Kings’ Protests Sweep US Cities as Opposition to Trump Deepens

Tens of thousands of protesters poured into the streets of major American cities on Saturday for nationwide “No Kings” demonstrations, a defiant display of resistance against President Donald Trump’s expanding executive power and his policies on immigration, education, and civil liberties.

Organizers said more than 2,600 events were planned across the country, describing the movement as the largest coordinated pushback yet against what they call Trump’s “imperial presidency.”

From New York’s Times Square to Chicago’s Grant Park and San Francisco’s Civic Center, crowds chanted, danced, and waved banners reading “Resist Fascism” and “Nothing is more patriotic than protesting.” In Portland, Oregon, demonstrators in inflatable frog costumes joined marching bands in a mix of satire and anger.

While the rallies carried the tone of a festival, their message was unmistakably political: that Trump’s accumulation of power, his defiance of Congress, and his use of federal authority to silence opposition represent a fundamental threat to American democracy.

The protests come amid the third major mobilization since Trump’s return to the White House and against the backdrop of a deepening government shutdown. With federal programs shuttered and workers unpaid, critics say the administration’s standoff with Congress has exposed how far Trump is willing to go to impose his will on the political system.

“They say they’re referring to me as a king. I’m not a king,” Trump said in a Fox News interview Friday.

Demonstrations stretched far beyond US borders, with solidarity gatherings outside American embassies in London, Madrid, and Barcelona.

In Washington, DC, protesters lined highway overpasses with banners quoting the Constitution’s preamble, “We the People.” Many carried pocket-sized copies of the founding document, held aloft like protest signs.

Republican leaders dismissed the protests as the work of radicals. House Speaker Mike Johnson mocked the movement, calling it “the Hate America rally” and accusing participants of being “Marxists and antifa types.”

Outside Trump Tower in Manhattan, a large banner reading “No Kings in America” hung from scaffolding as protesters marched past, chanting, “This is what democracy looks like!”