Updated March 28, 2026 at 5:52 PM CDT
Organizers behind the No Kings protests said they expected their biggest showing yet on Saturday against the policies of President Trump, with demonstrators energized by issues including the administration's immigration enforcement tactics and the war in Iran.
"March 28 will be the biggest protest in U.S. history," the group, which comprises a progressive coalition of activists, wrote on its website. "Find your local No Kings event to make it clear that America rejects the regime's brutality at home and abroad."
Organizers planned more than 3,000 events in cities across the United States, with several more planned abroad, including in Mexico and Canada.
This is the third series of nationwide protests organized by the group, which says Trump's actions in office are more akin to those of a monarch than a democratically elected leader.
In response to a request for comment about the planned protests, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson dismissed them as "Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions" and listed what she said were some of the campaign's "major leftist" financial backers.
"The only people who care about these Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them," Jackson said.
'Useless, vain war'
But those attending the protests said they had legitimate grievances with the president and his allies and hoped that mass, nonviolent demonstrations might help make a change.
Carina Kagan is a Mexican-Filipino American whose daughter is in the Army stationed overseas. She drove more than two hours from Lake of the Ozarks, Mo., to Kansas City, Mo., to protest the U.S. war in Iran.
"Right now, the military boots on the ground possibility is the biggest thing in my head," she said of the potential for a ground deployment of U.S. troops. "It's just a useless, vain war by a demented, old man, and to have to know that all these Americans might die for that — it's just top of mind."
Trump has said he doesn't plan to put boots on the ground, but he also hasn't ruled it out. On Friday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the U.S. could achieve its goals in Iran without ground troops.
Trump's stated goals for starting the war in Iran have shifted over the weeks, but one consistent objective he and top administration officials have pursued is the elimination of the country's ballistic missile arsenal and ensuring Iran never acquires nuclear weapons.
Kagan has attended No Kings events before and said that she feels a responsibility as a Latino person to make her presence known.
"We have all our Mexican family in San Diego with all our Mexican friends and whatnot. And I don't know if they're documented or not — that's not my deal, they're my friends and family — but a lot of them are scared, and they're afraid to have a voice in the community."
The last round of protests, this past October, saw some 5 million attendees spread across about 2,600 demonstrations, according to No Kings.
At an event in Rutland, Vt., hundreds of people had gathered by early afternoon, including Hannah Abrams.
"I'm here because of the incredible amount of cruelty that's going on in the world," she said.
This was Abrams third time attending a No Kings rally. She said she hopes there's no need for a fourth.
"It's just cruel conditions for people who are taken by ICE, it's the cruel way that they're taken," she said. "It's the cruelty of our economy and how we are paying more, even though we're told that the economy has improved. We're cruel towards other countries, taking their leaders and deciding those leaders' fates. I think the people who are in our military are being asked to sacrifice their lives not for freedom, but for money-hungry rulers, and that is cruel."
'People are outraged'
Bill McKibben is the Vermont-based founder of Third Act — a No Kings-affiliated group comprising people who are 60 years old and up.
He says intergenerational solidarity is a key part of the movement and that there are many older people willing to take to the streets alongside their younger compatriots.
"If you've been to any of the No Kings protests that have happened so far, you'll see a lot of people with hairlines like mine, which is to say, scant," he joked.
"People of all kinds are outraged by what's happening in the country right now, but older people have a particular role to play here."
He says that even older Americans who have lived through several presidencies describe the current one as the closest the country has come to authoritarian rule.
"This is a very weird moment in our political history," he said. "Look, there have been plenty of presidents in my lifetime I didn't much like or didn't agree with politically, but there's never been any that I thought were fascist, and I think that that's very clear what we're now starting to deal with in this country."
President Trump has said repeatedly that he's not a fascist or a king and has previously scorned the protests.
"I think it's a joke," he said last year of the October demonstrations. "I looked at the people. They're not representative of this country."
He has, however, simultaneously leaned into the royal comparisons, even while mocking critics, posting an AI-generated video of himself wearing a crown.
Visibility Brigade leader Dana Glazer, who is based in the New Jersey suburbs, similarly likened Trump's politics to fascism, which he said thrives when people are isolated from their communities.
Coming together in protest, he said, helps combat that social seclusion. Glazer and other members of his group plan to protest Saturday in Paramus, where the organization was founded.
"We are a force of treating people with individual human dignity and respect, and connection," he said. "And that's what brings us together. That's why this kind of event is powerful, is that people suddenly go, 'Oh wow, we have some power.' "
He said he hopes that people will see events like No Kings and be inspired to peacefully protest even when there aren't huge events planned.
"The reason why we're in this mess is because there has been a lack of civic engagement overall because people have been trained that just by nature of voting every two to four years that they're doing their civic duty," he said.
"We're obviously in a state of crisis right now, but we're in that state of crisis because of this."
Emily Younker from KCUR and Nina Keck from Vermont Public Radio contributed to this story.
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