Tensions have risen between critics and allies of the Trump administration as the country approaches the second “No Kings Day” of 2025.
Millions of Americans are expected to take to the streets Saturday as part of the more than 2,000 planned demonstrations across the country, according to organizers on the No Kings website. Protests are expected to be held in major cities too, from Los Angeles to Boston.
Washington, D.C. — where protesters did not march during the first No Kings Day — will be home to one of Saturday’s demonstrations. On the day of the previous event, the streets of the nation’s capital instead saw the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary military parade, which coincided with President Trump’s birthday on June 14. This time, protesters are expected to demonstrate outside Capitol Hill.
The point of the upcoming rallies has seen an ongoing back-and-forth between Republicans and Democrats. Republican leaders like House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (La.) have slammed the protest as a “hate America rally.”
“The theory we have right now [is] they have a ‘Hate America’ rally that’s scheduled for Oct. 18 on the National Mall,” Johnson said Oct. 10 in an interview with Fox News. “It’s all the pro-Hamas wing and the antifa people, they’re all coming out.”
The mention of antifa, short for “anti-fascists,” comes as the Trump administration continues its crackdown on the movement. Last month, Trump signed an executive order naming antifa a terrorist organization. The Department of Justice then filed a related indictment Thursday against two people in connection with a shooting outside an immigration facility in Alvarado, Texas.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Thursday also called the day of mass protest “antifa-linked,” and reasoned that he would deploy the Texas National Guard. Despite the deployment, Austin Mayor Kirk Watson (D) said the National Guard would be deployed to “work with local law enforcement to arrest anyone engaging in acts of violence or damaging property.”
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) said he placed the National Guard on “state active duty” to respond to incidents alongside police.
“With planned protests across the country this weekend, including in Virginia, I want to be clear that Virginians have a fundamental right to free speech and peaceful assembly, but that right does not include the destruction of property, looting, vandalism, disruption of traffic, or violence of any kind — for which there will be zero tolerance,” Youngkin said Friday in a post on the social platform X.
Some states and cities already facing National Guard deployments are expected to hold several protests, including in Chicago and Portland, Ore. Chicago’s Grant Park will be home to the city’s No Kings protest and will take place between noon and 2 p.m. local time. Portland is expected to hold a protest from noon to 4 p.m. at the Battleship Oregon Memorial at Waterfront Park.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in a Thursday post on X asked for people “who care about our democracy to march peacefully.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) directly addressed the “hate America rally” moniker used by Johnson and others and said the motivation behind No Kings was “quite the contrary.”
“It’s a rally of millions of people who believe in American freedom and are not going to allow you and President Trump to turn us into an authoritarian country,” Sanders said in a video shared on social media.
Ezra Levin, the executive co-director of Indivisible, the organization behind No Kings Day, told The Guardian on Friday that what critics are trying to do is “to dissuade you from participating.”
“That doesn’t mean that everybody has the same threat level,” Levin said. “It doesn’t mean that people should ignore what the threats are, but it does mean we’re going to need to see a lot of courage out there on Saturday.”
