{"id":209956,"date":"2025-10-19T00:53:03","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T00:53:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/209956\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T00:53:03","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T00:53:03","slug":"republicans-mostly-silent-as-millions-of-americans-protest-trump-on-no-kings-day-protests-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/209956\/","title":{"rendered":"Republicans mostly silent as millions of Americans protest Trump on No Kings day | Protests (US)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Republican voices were mostly silent as No Kings rallies and marches against Trump administration<\/a> policies unfurled on Saturday, many in the spirit of a street party that countered the \u201chate America\u201d depiction advanced by senior members of the party.<\/p>\n

Instead of provocation, there were marching bands, huge banners with \u201cwe the people\u201d references to the US constitution, and protesters wearing inflatable costumes, particularly frogs, which have emerged as a sign of resistance.<\/p>\n

It was the third mass mobilization since Trump\u2019s return to the White House and came against the backdrop of a government shutdown that not only has closed federal programs and services but is testing the core balance of power, as an aggressive executive confronts Congress and the courts in ways that protest organizers warn are a slide toward authoritarianism.<\/p>\n

In comments Friday, Donald Trump<\/a> opposed the protest organizers\u2019 characterization of him as a would-be monarch.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say they\u2019re referring to me as a king. I\u2019m not a king,\u201d Trump said in a Fox News<\/a> interview.<\/p>\n

Later Friday, a Trump campaign social media account mocked the protests by posting a computer-generated video of the president clothed like a monarch, wearing a crown and waving from a balcony.<\/p>\n

At a White House event on Wednesday, Trump tried to downplay the No Kings events. \u201cI hear very few people [are] going to be there, by the way, but they have their day coming up and they want to have their day in the sun,\u201d he said. Trump is spending the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.<\/p>\n

In a counter-programming move, JD Vance<\/a> and defense secretary Pete Hegseth were attending a live-fire amphibious capabilities demonstration at Camp Pendleton in California to commemorate the US Marine Corps\u2019 250th birthday.<\/p>\n

However, a plan to fire live artillery shells over a nearby highway drew objections from governor Gavin Newsom<\/a>, who said it forced the California highway patrol to close a portion of a major interstate<\/a> through southern California for safety reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe President is putting his ego over responsibility with this disregard for public safety,\u201d the Democratic governor said in a statement. \u201cFiring live rounds over a busy highway isn\u2019t just wrong \u2013 it\u2019s dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vance posted a comment on X<\/a> alluding to a meeting between New York\u2019s Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani<\/a> and Siraj Wahhaj, imam of at-Taqwa, who appeared on a list of un-indicted co-conspirators<\/a> in the trial of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been reliably informed that Democrats are opposed to any kind of political violence, so I look forward to them universally condemning Zohran Mamdani for campaigning with an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorist plot that killed 6 New Yorkers,\u201d Vance wrote.<\/p>\n

Fox News, meanwhile, ran a report<\/a> claiming that organizers embedded in the global intifada to destroy the state of Israel had moved to join the No Kings protests in New York under the organizational groupings of \u201cUAW Labor for Palestine\u201d and \u201cNYC Labor for Palestine\u201d.<\/p>\n

The right-leaning outlet also reported on Friday that foundations connected to George Soros were funding the No Kings protests via a $3m grant<\/a> to the organizer Indivisible<\/a> \u201cto support the grantee\u2019s social welfare activities\u201d.<\/p>\n

The relative silence of Republican leaders on Saturday came in contrast with efforts last week to preview the second No Kings day as a \u201chate America\u201d day populated by Hamas sympathizers and a reason why Democrats were delaying an agreement to end the government shutdown, now on its 18th day.<\/p>\n

Republican leaders disparaged rally-goers as \u201ccommunists\u201d and \u201cMarxists\u201d, and claimed that centrist Democrats, including the senate minority leader Chuck Schumer<\/a>, who marched in New York, were being held political hostage by the far left.<\/p>\n

\u201cI encourage you to watch \u2013 we call it the \u2018hate America\u2019 rally \u2013 that will happen Saturday,\u201d said the House speaker, Mike Johnson of Louisiana.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s see who shows up for that,\u201d Johnson added, listing groups including \u201cantifa types\u201d, people who \u201chate capitalism\u201d and \u201cMarxists in full display\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Republican voices were mostly silent as No Kings rallies and marches against Trump administration policies unfurled on Saturday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-209956","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}