Nationwide No Kings Protests Target Trump and His Agenda Again

Robert De Niro said he wakes up depressed every morning. Appearing in a video played before tens of thousands gathered around the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul on Saturday, he told the crowd he felt different that day, because millions of people were out in the streets. Moments later, Bruce Springsteen took the stage.

The scene in St. Paul captured the scale and spectacle of the third nationwide No Kings protests, held March 28 across more than 3,200 planned events in all 50 states and on several continents. Organizers declared the day potentially the "single largest non-violent day of action in American history," while the White House dismissed the entire effort as "Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions."

Attendance figures varied widely by source. Organizers claimed at least 8 million people attended nationally. San Diego police said about 40,000 marched in that city alone. Tens of thousands filled the streets in Seattle and in St. Paul, which organizers designated the flagship protest. Hundreds of thousands turned out in New York City, Washington DC, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, with additional demonstrations recorded in Paris, Berlin, Nashville, Dallas, and Denver. The previous round of No Kings protests, held last October, drew what the group itself counted as 5 million people across 2,600 demonstrations; BBC reported that figure as nearly seven million.

The network of progressive groups behind the demonstrations argues that Trump's actions in office are more akin to those of a monarch than a democratically-elected leader. Sarah Parker, a national coordinator for the group 50501, laid out the grievances bluntly on a national press call Thursday. "Since the last No Kings [protests], we're seeing higher gas prices and groceries, all while there's an illegal war in Iran," Parker told reporters. "We've also seen our neighbors executed, American citizens executed, and our children carrying the burden of owning their own power and walking out of school in defiance. The people of America are pissed. They are the ones demanding for no kings."

A national NBC News poll from earlier this month found that majorities of registered voters disapprove of Trump's handling of immigration, Iran, and inflation and the cost of living, numbers organizers cited as evidence of deepening public anger heading into Saturday.

In Washington DC, throngs marched from Arlington, Virginia, into the capital and lined the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, packing the National Mall. Demonstrators rang bells, played drums and carried signs reading "Put down the crown, clown" and "Regime change begins at home." Bill Jarcho came from Seattle with six people dressed as insects wearing tactical vests labeled "LICE," a direct spoof of ICE, as part of what he called a "mock and awe" tour. "What we provide is mockery to the king," Jarcho said. "It's about taking authoritarianism and making fun of it, which they hate."

As one DC march wound down at the Southwest Waterfront, protesters told reporters they wanted the rest of the country to know that Washington had been the administration's "guinea pig," as National Guard members stood a few feet away.

In St. Paul, Senator Bernie Sanders riled up the crowd with remarks about the role of the ultra-rich in politics before Springsteen performed "Streets of Minneapolis," his song about the death and destruction brought by ICE enforcement. In New York, Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said during a news conference that Trump and his supporters "want people to be afraid to protest." Protesters there and elsewhere held effigies of Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other administration officials, with chants calling for their ousting and arrest.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson did not engage with the substance of the protests. "The only people who care about these Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them," Jackson said. Trump allies have previously called the No Kings rallies a "hate America rally" and accused participants of links to the Antifa movement.

Several states mobilized the National Guard ahead of the demonstrations, though organizers maintained throughout that the events were peaceful. Exact national attendance figures were still being compiled as of Saturday evening, but the number of cities and countries where crowds gathered marked the widest geographic footprint the movement had yet reached.