LARGE crowds protested on Saturday against the war in Iran and President Donald Trump’s actions in “No Kings” rallies across the US and in Europe. Minnesota took centre stage, with thousands of people standing shoulder-to-shoulder to celebrate resistance to Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement. Minnesota’s flagship event on the Capitol lawn in St. Paul drew Bruce Springsteen as its headliner. He and other speakers praised the state’s people for taking to the streets over the winter in opposition to a surge of US Customs and Immigration Enforcement agents. Springsteen performed “Streets of Minneapolis,” the song he wrote in response to the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents. Springsteen lamented Good and Pretti’s deaths but said the state’s pushback against ICE 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 per cent of the vote in 2024.

 

Big, but mostly peaceful, crowds: US organisers 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. Organisers said more than 3,100 events, 500 more than in October, were registered, in all 50 states. Protests were mostly peaceful, but federal authorities deployed tear gas “due to demonstrators throwing large concrete blocks, bottles and other objects” in downtown Los Angeles, police said on the social platform X. LAPD also said protesters were later arrested for failing to disperse. Earlier 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 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.” GOP officials dismissive of protests: White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson characterised 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 reporters who are paid to cover them,” Jackson said. 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.