Key events
Fabiola Cineas
Thousands of protesters are rallying across the Washington, DC region as No Kings protests spread across the nation’s capital.
One protest group, made up of about a dozen Palestinian mothers, stood at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and waved a massive 10-foot-tall Palestinian flag. One of the mothers, activist Hazami Barmada, 42, said she was protesting to draw attention to “Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinian people.”
“Most Americans don’t know that our tax dollars are being used to subsidize violence,” Barmada said. “This is happening while many Americans can’t afford housing, milk, school, or healthcare. Prices continue to go up as we are fighting Israel’s wars.”
Other protesters, led by local activist organizations including Free DC, gathered at the Frederick Douglass Bridge in southeast Washington, DC. The crowd marched across the bridge to Fort McNair in Southwest DC where White House senior advisor Stephen Miller resides. The protest’s organizers say Miller is “running the effort to take over DC.”
Protesters told the Guardian they wanted to draw attention to the occupation of Washington, DC. In August, President Trump issued an executive order that put the federal government in charge of the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department. Trump used an additional executive order to deployed more than 2,000 members of the National Guard to the nation’s capital. Trump said the Guard members were mobilized to fight crime, though violent crime in DC is at a 30-year low.
Rachel Leingang
At the flagship protest in St Paul, Minnesota, many tens of thousands filled the streets around the state capitol to commiserate, mourn and speak out again the Trump administration.
Bruce Springsteen sang his song about the death and destruction brought by ICE to this state, Streets of Minneapolis, leading the crowd in chants of “ICE OUT NOW.”
Governor Tim Walz introduced Springsteen, saying it was clear America needed “no damn kings” but it needed The Boss.
Walz praised his state as the “freest” in the country and commended the state’s people for standing up for each other and for immigrants when Trump sent in thousands of federal agents, who killed two Minnesotans.
The names of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti featured heavily in the No Kings protest and signs here in Minnesota.
“We will never forget what they did here,” Walz said of the Trump administration. “You’ll still be here when that orange clown is in the dustbin of history.”
Thousands of protesters are rallying at Butler Field in Grant Park, Chicago, where my colleage Amy Qin is reporting:
As they filed into the park, protesters chanted “ICE out” and “Trump must go now, facists gotta go now”.
Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson was the first to speak at the event, opening by addressing the size of the crowd: “Look around: Our movement is bigger, our resolve is bigger.”
“We’re sending a clear message: we’re gonna end these assaults against working people, against immigrants and end these endless wars,” Johnson said.
In the crowd, protesters held aloft signs reading “No country for orange men” and “Imagine hating immigrants more than pedophiles”. Others waved signs denouncing ICE, supporting voting rights and criticizing wars.
Later in the rally, Dian Palmer, president of SEIU Local 73, said, “Fascism is really just one thing: powerful people using force to keep everyone else down, and unions exist to push back against that.”
Also at the event, social worker and Chicago Therapy Collective executive director Iggy Ladden denounced the Trump administration’s attacks against transgender people.
“Trans people are a direct threat to fascism because depends on control telling people who they can and cannot be,” Ladden said. “When we build a world that protects trans people we build a world that’s better for everyone.”
As demonstrators gather across the United States, the White House and Republican leadership are denouncing the No Kings day events planned today as “Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions”.
In a statement, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the demonstrations were created by “leftist funding networks” and that “only people who care about these Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee echoed the White House. “These Hate America Rallies are where the far-left’s most violent, deranged fantasies get a microphone,” spokesperson Maureen O’Toole told the Associated Press.
Protesters are gathering in Minnesota’s Twin Cities for a flagship No Kings rally in St Paul. Bruce Springsteen is expected to headline the event and perform Streets of Minneapolis, which he wrote following the deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti earlier this year.
Joan Baez, Jane Fonda and senator Bernie Sanders are also expected at the St Paul rally, which organizers believe could attract about 100,000 people.
Lex McMenamin
Well before the main New York City No Kings march was set to touch off near Central Park’s south-west edge, protesters milled through the frigid midtown streets with posters and banners, donning costumes, keffiyehs and parkas.
By 1.50pm, Letitia James, the state attorney general, Jumaane Williams, the city public advocate, Robert De Niro, Rev Al Sharpton and Padma Lakshmi filed into the front of the crowd behind hand painted banners reading: “WE PROTECT OUR DEMOCRACY – PEOPLE OVER BILLIONAIRES – WE PROTECT OUR NEIGHBORS.” They joined union members in AFT merch and protesters of all ages.
Press photographers swarming the celebrities slowed the progress of the march down 7th Avenue, making it difficult for them to take off. “From Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have got to go,” someone boomed into a small speaker, half a block ahead of the celebrities. “Racist ICE, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!” Hundreds more people awaited the march in Times Square, while another march proceeded parallel down Broadway to convene.
With No Kings protests under way in the United States, my colleagues across the pond are covering a massive, although unrelated, demonstration against the far-right in the United Kingdom.
Organizers believe about half a million people gathered in London today in what was expected to be the biggest multicultural march in UK history, organized by the Together Alliance.
“Together was formed in response to last September’s far-right ‘unite the kingdom’ demonstration, when violent groups went on the rampage. The overwhelming majority of people reject the racism, Islamophobia, division, hatred and violence promoted by Tommy Robinson and the far right,” Sabby Dhalu, of Stand Up to Racism, one of the members of the Together Alliance, told the Guardian.
As crowds continue to gather in Washington DC and Minnesota’s Twin Cities – where two of the largest protests of the day are planned – demonstrations are underway across the country.
Here are some more images from protests in Georgia, Kansas, Texas and elsewhere.
What is the 3.5% protest rule and what does it mean for the US?
The number is frequently cited in leftwing circles, serving as a rallying cry for people who oppose Donald Trump: if 3.5% of a population protests against a regime, the regime will fail.
Left-leaning content creators, activists and media have boosted the 3.5% rule as the anti-Trump resistance has grown. A Pod Save America episode in June was headlined The 3.5% Protest Rule That Could Bring Down Trump. Social media posts from protest groups broke down the rule and its limitations.
In the lead-up to mass days of protest, organizers have referred to the target as a goal. After the No Kings protests in June 2025, for instance, the progressive activist group Indivisible sent an email to its supporters noting how “3.5% is a historically important target – but not a magic number”. Another day of protests is set for Thursday [July 2025], dubbed “Good Trouble”, a reference to the late congressman John Lewis on the fifth anniversary of his death.
The figure stems from research of prior mass movements, though it’s often oversimplified. Still, the gist is accurate: sustained mass participation in a resistance movement can topple authoritarianism.
Hundreds of demonstrators have gathered outside the Capitolio de Puerto Rico in San Juan where my colleage Joseph Gedeon is reporting.
Here’s a scene of the crowds:
In an op-ed published today, California congressman Ro Khanna said, “The Epstein class thinks it runs America. Today, No Kings protesters send their response.”
“As more Americans are sent to fight abroad and the survivors of abuse are silenced at home, people increasingly feel dispensable,” the California congressman wrote in MS NOW. Khanna co-sponsored the Epstein Files Transparency Act. “For too long, Americans have seen our leaders fight harder for the Epstein class than for the working class. They have watched our system shield elites instead of delivering fundamentals such as affordable health care, housing and education.”
