GOP tries to brand anti-Trump ‘No Kings’ protests as un-American

Ahead of thousands of anti-authoritarian “No Kings” protests planned for Saturday across the United States, Republicans are trying to brand the demonstrations as “hate America” rallies, ramping up their rhetoric about the millions of people expected to peacefully protest President Donald Trump and his administration’s policies as they did in June.

For more than a week, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and other GOP leaders have cast the “No Kings” rallies as un-American, using increasingly hyperbolic language. Johnson and other members of House GOP leadership, including Majority Leader Steve Scalise (Louisiana), Majority Whip Tom Emmer (Minnesota), and Republican Conference Chair Lisa C. McClain (Michigan), have all described the protests as events for people who “hate” the country, with Johnson and Emmer going as far as to suggest the protests are meant to appease a “terrorist wing” of the Democratic Party.

“We call it the ‘hate America’ rally that will happen Saturday. Let’s see who shows up for that,” Johnson said Wednesday at a news conference with other House GOP leaders. “I bet you you’ll see Hamas supporters, I bet you’ll see antifa types, I bet you’ll see the Marxists on full display, the people who don’t want to stand and defend the foundational truths of this republic.”

Democrats and organizers of the more than 2,600 events scheduled for Saturday have said they’re outraged by this characterization, defending the protests as peaceful and pointing out there were relatively few disruptions at the rallies in June. They also warned of attempts to stifle First Amendment rights.

“Speaker Johnson said this is a ‘hate America’ rally because people are coming out expressing their concerns about massive cuts to health care and the movement toward authoritarianism. It’s not a hate America rally, it’s a love America rally,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Wednesday at a town hall on CNN with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).

In a video posted Wednesday, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) accused Republicans of trying to suppress rally turnout by amping up their rhetoric and trying to brand protesters as “terrorists.” Murphy, who is scheduled to speak at the D.C. “No Kings” rally on Saturday, urged people to show up in big numbers to demonstrate “peacefully but forcefully.”

“If you offer any criticism of this government, then you ‘hate America’? That’s ridiculous, un-American and unpatriotic,” Murphy said. “The fact is our country was founded on the idea that everyone has … a constitutionally-protected right to speak up and protest your government, especially when you think they have become lawless and corrupt.”

The number of “No Kings” events on Saturday is expected to exceed the number of similar demonstrations that took place June 14, which happened to be Trump’s birthday. Major events are planned outside the U.S. Capitol in D.C., as well as in Boston, New York and Chicago, where anger has boiled in recent weeks over the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown that’s yielded clashes between officials and protesters.

Ezra Levin, co-founder of the liberal grass-roots movement Indivisible that has co-organized the “No Kings” rallies, said that RSVPs had “skyrocketed” this week to greater numbers than the protests in June, which he said had at least 5 million people take to the streets. He credited the increased interest, in part, to the Republicans’ rhetoric about the rallies.

“I did not pay a dollar for this free publicity. It is incredible,” Levin told The Washington Post in an interview Thursday. “They fear mass peaceful protests, and that’s true of any authoritarian regime.”

Tensions have only increased since June’s demonstrations. The federal government is in its third week of being shut down, and Trump is fighting in court to lay off thousands of federal workers. Democrats and Republicans are deadlocked over extending health care subsidies that otherwise will expire at the end of the year, with neither side appearing willing to budge.

Republicans have sought to tie the “No Kings” rallies to the shutdown. Johnson used an Oct. 7 news conference to cast the Democrats as beholden to the protesters, planting the seed that a shutdown compromise would not be reached until after the rallies had taken place. At a White House event Wednesday, Trump himself suggested the same.

“I 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,” Trump said, referring to the coming protests. “But [Democrats] should really make a deal.”

The rallies also will come amid the Trump administration’s expanded use of the military to fight crime in Democratic-run cities and the White House’s increasingly incendiary rhetoric against the left.

In his speech to top military leaders at Quantico last month, Trump repeatedly insisted the United States was “under invasion from within” by “the radical left” and that the military should be able to “take them out.”

In a Fox News interview Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt lied, saying the Democratic Party’s “main constituency is made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens and violent criminals.”

Organizers of the “No Kings” rallies include established activist groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union alongside grass-roots groups that have formed since the 2024 election, such as the 50501 movement. Indivisible and Jewish Voice for Peace, also involved in organizing the rally, are on a list of left-wing organizations mentioned by the White House in connection to political protests that could be investigated, according to a Reuters report. A White House official quoted anonymously by Reuters said that the groups were not necessarily targets of the president’s directive for the National Joint Terrorism Task Force to focus on “anti-Americanism,” and that left-wing groups are free to protest within the bounds of the law.

Levin told The Post that Indivisible had never organized or called for violence and that any law enforcement investigation into the group would be an example of the administration “weaponizing the tools of the executive branch to go after those exercising their First Amendment rights,” he said.

“The Trump Administration is focused on stopping the scourge of left-wing violence plaguing American communities,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told The Post. “Left-wing protesters can beclown themselves by lawfully protesting the alternate reality they live in, but violence or breaking the law will not be tolerated.”

To help maintain peaceful protest, Levin said Indivisible has trained “tens of thousands” of people on “safety and de-escalation.” Rather than the violence predicted by Republicans, Levin said observers on Saturday should expect to see “strategic frivolity”: protesters dancing while holding witty signs and wearing the kind of lighthearted, ridiculing costumes that have become symbolic of anti-ICE protests in Portland, Oregon.

A statement on the “No Kings” website emphasizes that all events are “a commitment to nonviolent action” and that weapons of any kind should not be brought to the rallies.

“We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values and to act lawfully at these events,” the website states.