The demonstrators reveal themselves against Trump and Musk in `hands off! ”. Rallies in the United States-San Diego Union-Tribune

By Dave Collins

Crowds of people angry with the way President Donald Trump runs the country paraded and rallied in dozens of American cities on Saturday in the biggest day of demonstrations to date by an opposition movement trying to find his momentum after the shock of the first weeks of the Republican.

Supposedly from afar! Demonstrations have been organized for more than 1,200 locations in the 50 states by more than 150 groups, including civil rights organizations, unions, LBGTQ +defenders, veterans and activists.

From the National Mall and the Midtown Manhattan to Boston Common and several state capitals, thousands of demonstrators assaulted Trump and the actions of billionaire Elon Musk on reducing government, economics, immigration and human rights. In Seattle, in the shadow of the city’s emblematic space needle, the demonstrators held sides with slogans like “Fight the Oligarchy”.

The demonstrators expressed their anger at the administration’s measures to dismiss thousands of federal workers, close to the field offices of social security administration, to effectively close entire agencies, to expel immigrants, to evolve protections against transgender persons and to reduce the financing of health programs.

Musk, a Trump advisor who owns Tesla, SpaceX and the X social media platform, played a key role in reducing workforce as head of the newly created government ministry. He says he saves taxpayers from billions of dollars.

Kelley Robinson, president of the Defense group for human rights defenders, criticized the treatment of the LBGTQ + community at the National Mall Rally, where the Democrats of the Congress also took the scene.

“The attacks we see, they are not only political. They are personal, all of you,” said Robinson. “They try to ban our books, they reduce the funding of HIV prevention, they criminalize our doctors, our teachers, our families and our lives.”

“We don’t want this America, all of you,” added Robinson. “We want America that we deserve, where dignity, security and freedom do not belong to some of us, but to all of us.”

In Boston, the demonstrators have brandished panels such as “Hands Off Our Democracy” and “Hands Off Off Our Social Security”.

The mayor, Michelle Wu, said that she did not want her children and the others to live in a world in which threats and intimidation are government tactics and values ​​such as diversity and equality are attacked.

“I refuse to accept that they could grow up in a world where immigrants like their grandmother and grandfather are automatically presumed to be criminals,” said Wu.

Roger Broom, 66, retired from the county of Delaware, Ohio, was one of the hundreds of people who gathered in the state in Columbus. He said he was a Republican Reagan but had been discouraged by Trump.

“He tears this country,” said Broom. “It’s just an administration of grievances.”

Hundreds of people also demonstrated in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, a few kilometers from Trump’s golf course in Jupiter, where he spent the morning at the club’s senior club championship. People bordered the two sides of PGA Drive, encouraging cars to klaxon and sing slogans against Trump.

“They must keep the hands of our social security,” said Archer Moran of Port St. Lucie, Florida.

“The list of what they need to keep their hands is too long,” said Moran. “And it is incredible how long these protests have occurred since it was taken in office.”

The president planned to resume golf course on Sunday, according to the White House.

Asked about the demonstrations, the White House said in a statement that “President Trump’s position is clear: he will always protect social security, health insurance and medicaid for eligible beneficiaries. Meanwhile, the position of the Democrats gives social security, Medicaid and Medicare advantages to illegal foreigners, which will make these programs in charge and crushed these programs and crushes the American senarious people. ”

Activists have organized demonstrations several times nationally against Trump and Musk since Trump returned to functions. But before Saturday, the opposition movement had not yet produced mass mobilization such as women’s march in 2017, which brought thousands of women to Washington after the first inauguration of Trump, or the Matter Black Lives demonstrations that broke out in several cities after the murder of George Floyd by the police in Minneapolis in 2020.

In Charlotte, North Carolina, demonstrators said they supported a variety of causes, social security and immigration education and reproductive rights of women.

“Whatever your party, it doesn’t matter who you have voted, what’s going on today, what’s going on today is odious,” said Britt Castillo, 35, from Charlotte. “It is disgusting and as broken as our current system could be, the way in which the current administration will try to repair things – it is not the way of doing it. They don’t listen to people. “

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The journalists of the Associated Press Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, Fatima Hussein in West Palm Beach, Florida, and Erik Verduzco in Charlotte, in North Carolina, contributed.

Originally published: April 4, 2025 at 9:14 p.m.