'No Kings' protests erupt across US

WASHINGTON — Huge crowds took to the streets in all 50 US states at "No Kings" protests on Saturday, venting anger over President Donald Trump's hard-line policies, while Republicans ridiculed them as "Hate America" rallies.

Organizers said 7 million people marched in protests spanning New York to Los Angeles, with demonstrations popping up in small cities across the United States heartland and even near Trump's home in Florida.

"This is what democracy looks like!" chanted thousands in Washington near the US Capitol, where the federal government was shut down for a third week because of a legislative deadlock.

Colorful signs called on people to "protect democracy", while others demanded the country abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency at the center of Trump's anti-immigrant crackdown.

Demonstrators slammed what they called the Republican president's strong-arm tactics, including attacks on the media, political opponents and undocumented immigrants.

"I never thought I would live to see the death of my country as a democracy," 69-year-old retiree Colleen Hoffman told Agence France-Presse as she marched down Broadway in New York.

"We are in a crisis — the cruelty of this regime, the authoritarianism. I just feel like I cannot sit home and do nothing."

In Los Angeles, protesters floated a giant balloon of Trump in a diaper.

"Fight ignorance not migrants", read one sign at a protest in Houston, where nearly one-fourth of the population is made up of immigrants, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

While animated, the protests were largely peaceful.

Tear gas fired

However, in downtown Los Angeles, police fired nonlethal rounds and tear gas on Saturday to disperse crowds that included "No Kings" protesters, the Los Angeles Times reported.

"After thousands of people gathered to express their constitutional First Amendment rights peacefully earlier in the day, nearly 100 agitators marched over to Aliso and Alameda", where they used lasers and industrial-size flashing lights, the Los Angeles Police Department Central Division said on X.

"A Dispersal Order was issued and the demonstrators were dispersed from the area," it added, without specifying if any arrests were made.

Trump's response to Saturday's events was typically aggressive, with the president posting a series of AI-generated videos to his Truth Social platform depicting him as a king.

In one, he is shown wearing a crown and piloting a fighter jet that drops what appears to be feces on anti-Trump protesters.

House Speaker Mike Johnson derided the rallies as being "Hate America" protests.

"You're going to bring together the Marxists, the Socialists, the Antifa advocates, the anarchists and the pro-Hamas wing of the far-left Democrat Party," he told reporters.

Protesters treated that claim with ridicule.

"Look around! If this is hate, then someone should go back to grade school," said Paolo, 63, as the crowd chanted and sang around him in Washington.

Others underlined the deep polarization tearing apart United States politics.

Agencies via Xinhua