ST. PAUL, Minn. — Organizers of the “No Kings” rallies, scheduled across the nation for Saturday, anticipate that these protests against President Donald Trump and his administration could become one of the largest demonstrations in U.S. history, with Minnesota emerging as a focal point.
In a show of widespread participation, organizers report that over 3,100 events are planned across all 50 states, potentially drawing over 9 million attendees.
Minnesota’s rally at the state Capitol in St. Paul has been designated the national flagship event, highlighting the state’s significance where two individuals monitoring Trump’s immigration policies were fatally shot by federal agents, sparking widespread resistance.
The Minnesota gathering will be headlined by Bruce Springsteen, performing his song “Streets of Minneapolis,” which he composed in response to the tragic deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti as a tribute to the thousands who protested over the winter. Springsteen’s Land of Hope & Dreams American Tour, featuring a “No Kings” theme, is set to commence in Minneapolis on Tuesday.
Local organizers have informed state officials that they anticipate up to 100,000 people at the Capitol grounds, surpassing last June’s gathering of around 80,000 attendees.
In addition to Springsteen, the St. Paul rally will feature performances and speeches by singer Joan Baez, actor Jane Fonda, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and a host of other activists, labor leaders, and elected officials.
The White House dismissed the nationwide protests as the product of “leftist funding networks” with little real public support.
“The only people who care about these Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement.
Rallies are also planned in more than a dozen other countries, from Europe to Latin America to Australia, Ezra Levin, a co-executive director of Indivisible, a group spearheading the events, said in an interview. Countries with constitutional monarchies call the protests “No Tyrants,” he said.
For those unable to attend in person, another activist group, Stand Up For Science, is hosting a “virtual and accessible” event online.
National organizers told reporters in an online news conference Thursday that they expect Saturday’s protests to be larger than the first two rounds of No Kings rallies, which they estimate drew more than 5 million people in June and more than 7 million in October.
“This administration’s actions are angering not just Democratic voters or folks in big blue city centers – they are crossing a line for people in red and rural areas, in the suburbs, all over the country,” said Leah Greenberg, the other co-executive director of Indivisible. “The defining story of this Saturday’s mobilization is not just how many people are protesting, but where they are protesting,”
Two-thirds of the RSVPs have come from outside of major urban centers, Greenberg said, listing registration surges in conservative-leaning states like Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, South Dakota and Louisiana, as well in competitive suburban areas of Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona.
“Millions of us are rising up from all walks of life, from rural communities to big cities at No Kings,” said Katie Bethell, executive director of MoveOn, another major organizer. “And as we do so, we will send the loudest, clearest message yet that this country does not belong to kings, dictators, tyrants. It belongs to us.”
Copyright © 2026 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
