Minnesota in the spotlight with thousands of ‘No Kings’ rallies planned nationwide
Americans will take to the streets on Saturday, protesting against President Donald Trump in more than 3,100 “No Kings” rallies planned across all 50 states. The flagship event will be a massive rally in Minnesota, the scene of some of the Trump administration’s harshest immigration crackdowns.
The protest at the state capitol in St. Paul is expected to draw as many as 100,000 people and will feature a performance by Bruce Springsteen.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, says he will attend.
“We will never forget what happened here and we’re taking action against it,” Walz told MS NOW’s Chris Hayes.
“I think Minneapolis and Minnesota provided the template here for pushing back on this guy, and there’s work to be done,” Walz added.
Organizers said they chose Minnesota as host of the flagship event because it was subject to “some of the most horrific, sadistic behavior you can imagine,” Ezra Levin, a cofounder of Indivisible, the group behind the event, told The Associated Press.
“At the same time,” Levin said, “in the Twin Cities earlier this year, we saw some of the most inspiring, neighborly, brave organizing that we’ve seen anywhere in the country, and it serves as an inspiration to all of us.”
In the past year, Trump deployed Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol and the National Guard to states nationwide to combat crime and to fulfill his campaign promise of mass deportations of unauthorized immigrants.
In Minnesota, immigration officers shot and killed two Americans: Renée Good and Alex Pretti. Following their deaths in January, the No Kings organization announced Saturday’s rallies.
Walz said the deaths and the immigration operations “caused generational trauma.” He said the state will continue to ask for justice “till the final days of this administration and beyond.”
Ongoing conflicts expected to draw larger crowds
Levin told the AP the ongoing conflict in the Middle East is expected to draw even more Americans to the events.
The U.S. and Israel launched an attack on Iran on Feb. 28, in what the Trump administration is calling “Operation Epic Fury.” Since then, the conflict has drawn criticism from both sides of the aisle regarding a lack of transparency.
In promoting Saturday’s events, the No Kings organization called the operation “an illegal, catastrophic war putting us in danger and driving up our costs.”
What is ‘No Kings’?
The “No Kings” organization staged its first nationwide demonstrations last June, on Trump’s 79th birthday. A second series of rallies took place on Oct. 18, featuring more than 2,700 events across all fifty states. That event transformed the movement from a one-day protest into a nationwide organization speaking out against Trump.
“The president thinks his rule is absolute,” the No Kings website reads. “But in America, we don’t have kings — and we won’t back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty.”
Trump has been largely dismissive of the “No Kings” protests, insisting, “I’m not a king” and saying attendees are “not representative of the people of our country.”
On the day of the October rallies, Trump posted an AI-generated video online that depicted him as a fighter pilot dumping feces on protesters.
Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
