Massive crowds poured into Washington, DC, today as part of a wave of “Hands Off!” demonstrations held nationwide. The protests were aimed at opposing spending reductions implemented by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and President Trump’s newly introduced “Liberation Day” tariffs. One fiery speaker urged demonstrators to strike fear into the hearts of both men.
Gathering near the Washington Monument, thousands of attendees held homemade signs—many with explicit language—criticizing Republicans, while similar protests took place in cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia.
“Trump and Musk, who want to be dictators and want to be kings and lords, they are afraid of the power of love and truth and justice!” thundered Rev. William Barber II, one of the opening speakers in DC.
“They are afraid of your unity and diversity. Well, let’s keep them afraid until they change,” he added, raising his voice. “This is an outright battle for civilization! We are not going to bow to power drunk neofascist extremists.”
The event was backed by a broad alliance of progressive organizations and marked one of the largest protests in the capital since Trump’s return to office in January. Parallel rallies occurred at more than 1,000 locations nationwide, including in New York City at Columbia University and Bryant Park.
There has been a rise in acts of vandalism targeting Tesla facilities and vehicles across the country, which Trump—who survived two assassination attempts in the past year—has condemned as acts of domestic terrorism.
Among the organizers were Indivisible, which recently called for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to resign after he helped avert a government shutdown, and MoveOn.org, a well-known activist group.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who led the House prosecution during Trump’s second impeachment, followed Barber at the podium and praised him, saying he was “the great Rev. Barber.”
Speaking to the energized crowd, Raskin said, “the right to call the president deranged for crashing our economy, destroying $6 trillion of wealth and turning my 401k into a 201k.”
“No moral person wants an economy-crashing dictator who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing,” he continued, drawing applause.
Raskin didn’t limit himself to economic issues, either. He slammed the administration’s foreign policy ambitions.
“We say to Donald Trump and Elon Musk, hands off Greenland! That’s an independent country,” he said. “Hands off Canada! That’s an independent country. Hands off Panama! That’s an independent country. Statehood for Washington, DC!”
Demonstrators brought with them the now-iconic Trump baby balloons and chanted slogans like “DOGE [profanity]!” The event wrapped up peacefully in the afternoon, with no reports of violence or confrontations with police.
Expecting potential unrest, the White House had preemptively canceled its Saturday garden tours and erected anti-riot fencing. Trump himself was not in the capital for the weekend.
In New York, Columbia University—which has been a hub for anti-Israel protests since October 2023—saw only a small turnout, with about 20 mostly older demonstrators holding signs that read “Democracy, not dictatorship” and chanting “hands off our students!”
One protester, 71-year-old retiree Kathryn Graybill, told The NY Post, “I’m very disturbed that people are being picked up and taken to prisons in other countries without due process. That’s against our Constitution. Our Constitution says that no one should deprive anybody of freedom of speech.”
She added, “That happened in Hitler’s Germany and I’m not comfortable with it.”
The Trump administration is currently pursuing the deportation of former Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil, who allegedly distributed pro-Hamas materials on campus.
Elsewhere in Manhattan, a different group of demonstrators marched past towering skyscrapers with signs shaped like hearts that read “hands off our libraries,” referring to one of Musk’s budget cuts.
Julie Peppito, an artist who crafted two large yellow hand props for the event, said, “painted all the things they wanted the Trump regime to keep their hands off: our rights, our land, all the things we hold dear.”
Among the marchers were Sandy and Eddie Pomerantz, a couple in their 90s, who told The Post that staying active is their secret to staying young.
“We’re still doing everything we did at the age of 25,” Eddie said, recalling their activism from the 1960s. “It is long, long overdue to charge the president of the United States with the attempted murder of our democracy.”
{Matzav.com}