People around the U.S. — and other countries as well — protested President Donald Trump over a myriad of issues at thousands of “No Kings” rallies Saturday.
The flagship rally happened in St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota, a state that saw a mass deployment of federal immigration agents as part of “Operation Metro Surge.”
It’s also the state where U.S. citizens and Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti were shot and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents earlier this year.
One St. Paul resident, Gary Jenneke, 82, told the Minnesota Star-Tribune that it was “depressing” to live through Operation Metro Surge. He went to the “No Kings” rally to be around like-minded people, he said.
Download the SAN app today to stay up-to-date with Unbiased. Straight Facts™.
Point phone camera here
“It’s uplifting to the spirit,” Jenneke said to the outlet. “And we fear it’s the end of democracy. I think that’s [Trump’s] goal.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who dropped his re-election bid in January, and his wife, Gwen, were met with loud cheers as he opened his speech by calling Minnesota “the freest state in the nation.”
“When the wannabe dictator in the White House sent his untrained, aggressive thugs to do damage to Minnesota, it was you, Minnesota, who stood up for your neighbors, who stood up for decency, who stood up for conscience,” he said.
Still, Walz said, “make no mistakes about it — [The Trump administration] did damage.”
“They killed Renee and Alex. They traumatized our neighbors,” he said. “…We will never forget what they did here.”
In a message to Minnesota’s immigrant community, Walz said “you are seen, heard, valued and loved. You add value to our state.” He shouted out the numerous Somali-Americans in the state, saying their “great-grandchildren will still be here when that orange clown is in the dustbin of history.”
Among several big-name performers at the rally were Bruce Springsteen, who played his song “Streets of Minneapolis” for the crowd and was introduced by Walz.
“We need no damn kings,” Walz said. “But I’ll tell you what I’m glad we have: We do need a Boss.”
Along with immigration, protestors at nationwide protests held up signs decrying the war in Iran, and the Trump administration’s actions in Venezuela.
Chicago resident Rachel, who declined to give her last name, told Straight Arrow News that she came to the rally “looking for change.”
Some of her main concerns with the Trump administration, she said, are that it is “taking the people’s money for bad purposes, and going to war without Congress’ approval, killing people.”
Rachel said she’d rather that money be going to health care and education.
Seeing everyone turn out for the rally is “heartening,” though, she added.
Like Minnesota, Illinois also saw its own surge of immigration agents through “Operation Midway Blitz,” during which a man, Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, was fatally shot by ICE agents in suburban Chicago. When seeing people in the city organize against ICE, Rachel said she felt “a lot of pride” in how people were “standing up for each other.”
In New York City, a protester named Yohanna, in an interview with CNN, said “there’s not enough room” on her sign to say why she’s protesting.
“If we want a democracy, we have to participate in it and we have to save it,” she said.
The White House dismissed the rallies in a statement to The Associated Press, claiming that “the “only people who care about these Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them.”
However, organizers said before Saturday they expected this rally to be the largest yet, with more than 3,200 events organized in the U.S.
