Anti-Trump protesters gather in Washington, other US cities

Some 1,200 demonstrations are planned across the US on Saturday in what organisers expect to be the largest single day of protest against President Donald Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk since the administration launched its rapid-fire effort to put a conservative stamp on government.

Thousands were streaming into downtown Washington as the protests got underway under gloomy skies and light rain. Organisers told Reuters that more than 20,000 people were expected to attend the rally at the National Mall.

The protests in the US will allow Trump’s opponents to demonstrate their displeasure en masse in response to Trump’s raft of executive orders. Some 150 activist groups have signed up to participate, according to the event’s website. Protests are planned in all 50 states plus Canada and Mexico.

“This is an enormous demonstration that is sending a very clear message to Musk and Trump and congressional Republicans and all the goose-stepping allies of MAGA that we don’t want their hands on our democracy, on our communities, on our schools and our friends and our neighbours,” said Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible, one of the groups organising Saturday’s events.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Trump or Musk.

Protesters were lining the busy thoroughfare of Connecticut Avenue in Washington DC, awaiting buses to take them downtown. They were carrying signs with slogans such as ‘No Kings in the USA’ and ‘Deport Musk’.

Terry Klein, a retired biomedical scientist from Princeton, New Jersey, was among hundreds who gathered early in front of the stage below the Washington Monument.

She said she drove down to attend the rally to protest Trump’s policies on “everything from immigration to the DOGE stuff to the tariffs this week, to education”.

“I mean, our whole country is under attack, all of our institutions, all the things that make America what it is,” she said.

David Madden, a 75-year-old Army veteran and retired trial lawyer, said he flew from Dayton, Ohio, to “demonstrate against the injustice that is dominating this country, the institutions that are being stolen from the American people, the confusion in the courts, the fact that we have a population that I believe is essentially racist”.

With Trump’s blessing, Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team has scythed through the US government, eliminating more than 200,000 jobs from the 2.3 million federal workforce. At times, the effort has been haphazard and forced the recall of needed specialists.

On Friday, the Internal Revenue Service began laying off more than 20,000 workers, as much as 25 per cent of its ranks.

Several hundred people gathered on Saturday outside the headquarters of the Social Security Administration, a top DOGE target, near Baltimore to protest against cuts to the agency which delivers benefits to the elderly and disabled.

The mood was angry and defiant after the agency recently announced cuts of 7,000 staff and the ending of phone services to millions of claimants.

Members of DOGE have been inside the building for weeks. Many in the crowd of mostly retirees held handmade signs, including ‘Where Has My Country Gone?’, ‘FIRE DOGE!’, ‘Send Musk to Mars’, and ‘Hands off Social Security!’.

Linda Falcao, who turns 65 in two months, told the crowd she had been paying into the Social Security fund since the age of 16.

“I’m terrified, I’m angry, I’m pissed, I’m bewildered this could happen to the United States,” she said. “I do love America and I’m heartbroken. I need my money. I want my money. I want my benefits!” In response, the crowd chanted, “It’s our money!”

White House assistant press secretary Liz Huston disputed the protesters’ charge that Trump aimed to cut Social Security and Medicaid.

“President Trump’s position is clear: he will always protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for eligible beneficiaries. Meanwhile, the Democrats’ stance is giving Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare benefits to illegal aliens, which will bankrupt these programmes and crush American seniors,” Huston said in an email.

Trump returned to office on January 20 with a stream of executive orders and other measures critics say are aligned with an agenda outlined by Project 2025, a deeply conservative political initiative to reshape government and consolidate presidential authority.

His supporters have applauded Trump’s audacity as necessary to disrupt entrenched liberal interests.

Much of Trump’s agenda has been restrained by lawsuits contending he has overstepped his authority with attempts to fire civil servants, deport immigrants and reverse transgender rights.

Pro-Palestinian groups opposing US ally Israel’s renewed military action in Gaza and the Trump administration’s crackdown on campus protests will also participate in Washington and plan to carry out a march, protest groups said in a statement.

Hours before the “Hands Off!” protests were due to kick off, hundreds of anti-Trump Americans living in Europe gathered in Berlin, Frankfurt, Paris and London to voice opposition to Trump’s sweeping makeover of US foreign and domestic policies.

About 200 people, mostly American, gathered at Paris’ Place de la Republique, listening to speeches and waving banners ranging from ‘Resist Tyrant’, ‘Rule of Law’ to ‘Feminists for Freedom not Fascism’ and ‘Save Democracy’.

“We have to show solidarity with all the demonstrations in a thousand cities today in the USA,” Democrats Abroad spokesperson Timothy Kautz said in Frankfurt. Protester Jose Sanchez said Trump was a con man who was destroying US democracy.

At the start of Trump’s first term in 2017, hundreds of thousands of people joined the Women’s March on Washington to demonstrate opposition.

Protests this year have been smaller, but activist leaders have been planning to unite for a large-scale event, Levin said.

Indivisible, which formed after Trump’s first election in 2016, has worked with other liberal groups, including MoveOn and the Working Families Party, to unite progressive organisations nationwide.

Among the organisations pledged to participate are the Service Employees International Union, a labour union representing about 2 million workers; Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy group in the United States; and the environmental group Greenpeace.