- Date:
- October 18, 2025
- June 14, 2025
- Location:
- United States
āNo Kingsā protests
What are the āNo Kingsā protests?
When did the āNo Kingsā protests take place?
Who organized the āNo Kingsā protests?
Why did people participate in the āNo Kingsā protests?
How widespread were the āNo Kingsā protests?
News •
āNo Kingsā protests, any of four nationwide demonstrations organized to protest the policies and actions of U.S. Pres. Donald Trump during his second term (2025ā ) or, in the fourth, to encourage early voting in the upcoming midterm elections. The first demonstrations were held on June 14, 2025, to coincide with Pres. Trumpās birthday and a military parade in Washington, D.C., commemorating the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. The second day of āNo Kingsā demonstrations occurred on October 18, 2025, the third on March 28, 2026, and the fourth on October 17, 2026. The first three demonstrations were some of the largest single-day protests to occur in U.S. history, with more than five million people attending in June 2025, almost seven million in October 2025, and more than eight million in March 2026. The fourth demonstration, focused on early voting, involved enormous rallies in some locations but relatively smaller ones elsewhere.
The demonstrations were called āNo Kingsā in opposition to the forceful policies that President Trump has promoted from the executive branch.
āThe president thinks his rule is absolute. But in America, we donāt have kingsāand we wonāt back down against chaos, corruption, and cruelty,ā the organizers explain on a website for the rallies.
āNo Kingsā demonstrations have been largely organized by liberal organizations within the United States, such as the 50501 Movement, Indivisible, and MoveOn. Nonpartisan groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have also helped facilitate rallies. The āNo Kingsā moniker was coined by 50501 Movement, which on its website emphasizes the ā3.5% ruleāāthe idea that if 3.5 percent of a population becomes involved in a movement, significant political change may be achieved.
Although the first three demonstrations were mainly concentrated in the United States, others occurred in countries around the world. In those with constitutional monarchies, such as the United Kingdom, the demonstrations went by names such as āNo Tyrantsā or āNo Dictators.ā
Organization and scope of the 2025 protests
- Dates:
- June 14, 2025
- October 18, 2025
- Locations:
- June 14, 2025: About 2,100 sites across the U.S.
- October 18, 2025: About 2,700 sites across the U.S.
- March 28, 2026: About 3,300 sites across the U.S.
- October 17, 2026: About 2,500 sites across the U.S.
- Organizers: Progressive organizations such as the 50501 Movement, Indivisible, and MoveOn
- Turnout in the first three protests:
- June 14, 2025: About 4 to 6 million people
- October 18, 2025: About 7 million people
- March 28, 2026: About 8 million people
June 14 protests
Major cities such as Chicago and New York, and Philadelphia have seen large-scale demonstrations, while sizable rallies occurred in smaller cities and suburban locales. Attendees waved American flags and signs that called for democracy over fascism.
Although the majority of rallies were peaceful, some were deemed unlawful assemblies, and law enforcement used violent dispersion tactics in several locations. In Los Angeles and Seattle, for example, police used tear gas to scatter protesters. Los Angeles had already been the site of widespread unrest in response to federal immigration raids, and Trump had ordered the National Guard to report to the city on June 7, 2025, to protect federal immigration officers from what he termed a ārebellion.ā This, coupled with āNo Kingsā rallies, led to violent scenes; police, many on horseback, sometimes used batons and tear gas on protesters, claiming that the protesters were throwing bricks and fireworks at law enforcement officials.
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(Read more about National Guard deployments throughout history.)
In Minnesota an armed assassin killed a Democratic state representative and her husband and gravely wounded a state senator and his wife in the hours before the anti-Trump protests were scheduled to occur. As state and federal law enforcement staged a manhunt for the shooter, who was considered armed and dangerous, many āNo Kingsā events were canceled, and Gov. Tim Walz encouraged protesters to stay indoors. However, thousands of people attended more than 40 demonstrations in the state.
At a rally in Salt Lake City, Utah, a crowd control volunteer shot 39-year-old fashion designer Arthur Folasa Ah Loo, who was later pronounced dead. In northern Virginia a man drove his car into a group of protesters, hitting at least one person. Similar cases of motorists hitting protesters occurred in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Individuals also committed violent hit-and-run incidents against protesters in smaller cities such as Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Riverside, California.
October 18 protests
In the months following the first round of protests, immigration raids intensified, the government shut down (on October 1), and the National Guard was deployed to Washington, D.C., and Memphis, Tennessee. (Trump had ordered troopsā deployments in Chicago and Portland, but both orders were initially blocked by judges. In Portland an appeals court overturned that decision.) When Trump was asked about the second round of protests, he said to reporters, āI hear very few people are going to be there, by the way.ā However, the second round of protests was discernibly larger than the first, indicating both increased public awareness of the administrationās actions and increasingly unfavorable views of Trumpās policies.
The rallies in October featured an influx of protesters dressed in inflatable frog costumes, which had become a symbol of resistance in Portland, Oregon, at local demonstrations against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Other participants dressed as inflatable chickens, dinosaurs, and similar wacky characters to dispel some Republicansā characterization of protesters as violent and lawless. Portland City Council Member Sameer Kanal stated that day, āWe have chickens and frogs defending democracy.ā āNo Kingsā protesters carried signs that included pithy phrases such as āDemocracy not Monarchyā and āNo One Paid Me to Be Here,ā the latter a jab at Republican talking points regarding paid protesters. Republicans were generally critical of the protests, with House Speaker Mike Johnson referring to the day as the āHate America Rally.ā
Across the country, the participants demonstrated peacefully. One of the most notable sites of conflict, however, occurred in Portland, where about 500 āNo Kingsā protesters gathered after the march outside an ICE facility, a site of protests since June 2025. Counterprotesters were also present in the crowd. Federal agents stationed on the roof of the facility met the crowds with tear gas, smoke bombs, and flash-bangs. Local law enforcement also patrolled the area, warning protesters that they would be arrested if they blocked streets. During the course of the action, three protesters were arrested.
Impact of the 2025 protests
āThe day came off with potentially millions of people in the streetsā¦and with very few incidents of injuries, arrests, property damage, or anything else that might play into the narrative that the movement is not disciplined, is not nonviolent, and is not democratic in its ethos.ā āpolitical scientist Erica Chenoweth in an NPR interview regarding the June 14 āNo Kingsā rallies
According to the ACLU, about four to six million protesters attended āNo Kingsā rallies in Juneāan unprecedentedly high number. This number was surpassed by the reportedly seven million protesters who attended āNo Kingsā protests in October. The protests stood in stark contrast to the scale of protests that occurred during Trumpās first presidential term in 2017. The previous record was held by the 2017 Womenās March, which saw more than 3.3 million protesters across the U.S. Harvard Universityās Crowd Counting Consortium estimated that the first three months of Trumpās second term saw about three times as many protests as his entire first presidency. This finding did not include the āNo Kingsā protests or other rallies in April, May, or June.
Octoberās āNo Kingsā rallies notably drew a greater number of former Republicans who had grown wary of Trumpās policies. Observing the rapid intensification of immigration raids and National Guard deployments that had taken place during the summer, many protesters expressed concerns about the future of the United States. One protester in New York City held a sign that stated simply, āWe protest because we love America, and we want it back.ā
The 2026 protests and rallies
March 28 protests
A third āNo Kingsā protest took place on March 28, 2026, drawing an estimated eight million participants across more than 3,300 sites nationwide, making it the second-largest protest in U.S. history. The demonstrations broadly focused on executive overreach, with protesters rallying against the 2026 Iran War, the rising cost of living, and ongoing immigration enforcement activities.
Read more about the Largest Single-Day Protests in the United States.
October 17 rallies
A fourth āNo Kingsā demonstration took place on October 17, 2026. Although organized by the leaders of the first three protests, this event focused on increasing early voting across the country in the November 2026 midterm elections. The great majority of participants were Democrats or independent voters, despite the demonstrationās official designation as ānonpartisan.ā The vast majority of Republicans were not inclined to participate, because they understood the rallies to have been organized to prevent Donald Trump from interfering in the midterm elections.