Opponents of President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk gathered through the United States on Saturday to protest against administration’s actions on reducing government, economics, human rights and other issues.
Look at the rally speakers in Washington, DC, in the player above.
Over 1,200 “Hands-Off!” Demonstrations have been planned by more than 150 groups, including civil rights organizations, unions, LBGTQ +defenders, veterans and elections activists. Protest sites included the National Mall in Washington, DC, state capitols and other locations in the 50 states.
The demonstrators assailed the measures of the Trump administration to dismiss thousands of federal workers, close to the offices in the field of social security administration, to effectively close entire agencies, to expel immigrants, to evolve protections against transgender persons and to reduce federal funding for health programs.
Musk, a Trump advisor who owns Tesla, SpaceX and the X social media platform, played a key role in reducing government staff 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, spoke during the Washington demonstration, criticizing the Trump administration of the LBGTQ +community.
“The attacks we see, they are not only political. They are personal, all of you,” she said. “They try to ban our books, they reduce funding for HIV prevention, they criminalize our doctors, our teachers, our families and our lives. It’s Donald Trump’s America and I don’t want you.
Thousands of people paraded in the New York Midtown Manhattan. In the Massachusetts, thousands of others met on common Boston detention panels, in particular “Hands Off Off Off OUR DEMOCROCY”, “Hands off Our Social Security” and “Inclusion on the equity of diversity makes America strong.
People participate in a “main-office on a national scale!” Anti-Trump protest in New York, April 5, 2025. Photo by Eduardo Munoz / Reuters
In Ohio, hundreds have rallied in the rain in the state of Columbus.
Roger Broom, 66, a retiree from the county of Delaware, Ohio, said at the Columbus rally that he was a republican Reagan but had been deactivated 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.
Archer Moran from Port St. Lucie, Florida, said: “They must keep their hands out of our social security.”
“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 plans 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. ”
People participate in anti-Trump demonstrations “Hands-Off” nationally in Boston, Massachusetts, April 5, 2025. Photo by Reba Saldanha / Reuters
Activists have organized demonstrations several times against Trump or Musk since Trump returned to functions. But the opposition movement has not yet produced mass mobilization such as women’s march in 2017, which brought thousands of women to Washington, DC, after the first inauguration of Trump, or the Matter Black Lives demonstrations that broke out in several cities after the murder of George Floyd 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. “
“All they do is make sure they have a parachute for them and their rich friends, and everyone here lives here – who turns the gears for this country – are just screwed at the end of the day,” she said.
The writers of the Associated Press Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, and Fatima Hussein in West Palm Beach, Florida, and video journalist Guillermo Gonzalez in Charlotte, North Carolina, contributed to this report.