ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Crowds of people protested Saturday against the war in Iran and President Donald Trump's actions, in “No Kings” rallies across the U.S. and in Europe. Minnesota took center stage, in what organizers expected to be mass demonstrations involving millions of people.
Thousands of people stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the Minnesota Capitol lawn and surrounding streets in St. Paul. Some held upside down U.S. flags, historically a sign
of distress.
The event's headliner was Bruce Springsteen, who performed “Streets of Minneapolis.” He wrote the song in response to the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents and in tribute to the thousands of Minnesotans who took to the streets over the winter to protest the Trump administration's aggressive immigration enforcement.
Before he launched into the song, Springsteen lamented Good and Pretti’s deaths but said people's continued pushback against U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement has given the rest of the country hope.
“Your strength and your commitment told us that this was still America,” he said. “And this reactionary nightmare, and these invasions of American cities, will not stand.”
People rallied from New York City, with almost 8.5 million residents in a solidly blue state, to Driggs, a town of fewer than 2,000 people in eastern Idaho, a state Trump carried with 66% of the vote in 2024.
U.S. organizers 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 Saturday, though it was too early to tell whether those expectations were met.
Organizers said more than 3,100 events — 500 more than in October — were registered, in all 50 states.
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 (32 kilometers) to the east, and planned to drive back to her hometown for a later rally there.
Wyatt said “there are so many things” about the Trump administration that upset her, but “this is very hopeful to me.”
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson characterized 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.
The Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement, particularly in Minnesota, were just one item on a long list of protester grievances that also included the war in Iran and the rollback of transgender rights.
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, played drums and chanted “No kings.”
Bill Jarcho was there from Seattle, joined by six people dressed as insects wearing tactical vests that said, “LICE,” spoofing 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.”
About 40,000 people marched in a “No Kings” event in San Diego, police there said.
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.
“They want us to be afraid that there’s nothing we can do to stop them," she said. "But you know what? They are wrong — dead wrong.”
But organizers said two-thirds of the RSVPs for the rallies came from outside of major urban centers. That included communities in conservative-leaning states like Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, South Dakota and Louisiana, as well in competitive suburban areas of Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona.
Organizers designated the rally there as the national flagship event, in recognition of how the state where federal agents fatally shot two people who were monitoring Trump's immigration crackdown.
Springsteen’s Land of Hope & Dreams American Tour has a “No Kings” theme and kicks off Tuesday in Minneapolis.
Before the rocker known as “the Boss" took the stage, organizers played a video from Robert DeNiro. The actor said he wakes up every morning depressed because of Trump but was happier Saturday because millions of people were protesting. He also congratulated Minnesota residents for running ICE out.
An event on the Minnesota Capitol grounds in June drew an estimated 80,000 people and Minnesota organizers expected 100,000 on Saturday.
The bill also included singer Joan Baez, actor Jane Fonda,Sen. Bernie Sanders and a long list of other activists, labor leaders and elected officials.
Protesters held up a massive sign on the Capitol steps that read, “We had whistles, they had guns. The revolution starts in Minneapolis.”
Rallies are also planned in more than a dozen other countries, from Europe to Latin America to Australia, Ezra Levin, a co-executive director of Indivisible, a group spearheading the events, said in an interview. Countries with constitutional monarchies call the protests “No Tyrants,” he said.
In Rome, thousands of people marched with defiant chants aimed at Premier Giorgia Meloni, whose conservative government saw its referendum for streamlining Italy's judiciary badly fail earlier this week amid criticism that it was a threat to the courts' independence. Protesters waved banners protesting the Israeli and US attacks on Iran, calling for “A world free from wars.”
In London, people protesting the war in Iran held banners that said, “Stop the far right” and “Stand up to Racism.”
And on Saturday morning in Paris, several hundred people, mostly Americans living in France, along with French labor unions and human rights organizations, gathered at the Bastille.
“I protest all of Trump’s illegal, immoral, reckless, and feckless, endless wars,” Ada Shen, the Paris No Kings organizer, said.
___
Richmond reported from Madison, Wisconsin, and Hanna from Topeka, Kansas. Associated Press journalists Nicholas Garriga in Paris, Mike Pesoli in Washington, Colleen Berry in Milan, and Amy Taxin in Santa Ana, California, contributed.
