Nearly 60 such protests are planned around midday Saturday in the Bay Area
File photo of protestors holding up signs during the “No Kings” protest held in Walnut Creek on June 14, 2025. An estimated 4,000 people showed up to protest and march in downtown Walnut Creek. are expected to sweep across California and the nation on Saturday, during which millions of protesters across the country are slated to push back against President Donald Trump, his administration’s deadly immigration crackdown and his unilateral decision to wage war on Iran.
The protests are being touted as potentially the largest sign yet of discontent since Trump returned to the White House in early 2025 and began swiftly reshaping the federal government and reordering America’s place on the world stage. The rallies follow large-scale — and similarly-themed — protests in, which summoned millions of people to the nation’s streets with signs reading “NO KINGS IN THE USA” and “DEFEND DEMOCRACY.” Nearly 60 such protests are planned around midday Saturday in the Bay Area, including at St. James Park in San Jose, Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland and Embarcadero Plaza in San Francisco. Organizers say the rallies aim to send a message that “we can overcome this repression when we unite.” “Trump wants to rule over us as a tyrant,” the No Kings website said. “But this is America, and power belongs to the people – not to wannabe kings or their billionaire cronies.” The rallies come at a particularly fraught moment, with the month-old war in Iran having destabilized the Middle East while causing a global energy crisis — one that has seen gas prices in the United States rise by a dollar or more per gallon. Just two months ago, Trump’s immigration crackdown reached a fever pitch in Minnesota as federal agents fatally shot two American citizens while conducting street-by-street migrant roundups —In the wake of the war and ICE’s actions across the nation, “a lot more people are getting off the sidelines,” said Nancy Latham, one of the organizers of Oakland’s No Kings protest. “All through our history, we’ve been building and renovating our democracy,” Latham said. “And right now, we’re in a moment of terrible authoritarian consolidation. This is an existential moment for our country.” The Iranian war is of particular concern to Babak Sani, 63, who was born in the country and came to Berkeley as a teenager in 1978, a year before the Iranian Revolution. He and growing number of other Iranian Americans who oppose the war plan to attend the protests, call for its end. “This war is primarily instigated by this would-be king, without any kind of authorization,” Sani said in an interview Friday. “It’s a nightmare scenario for Iranians: The population in Iran is between a government they do not like — a super-oppressive government — and now bombs falling all over.”summoned more than 140,000 protesters across the Bay Area — and an estimated 5 million people across the country — in a “nationwide day of defiance” that coincided with Trump’s birthday — and a $45 million military parade staged to honor him in Washington, D.C.against Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops and U.S. Marines in Los Angeles, his sweeping changes to the federal bureaucracy and the Secret Service’s violent takedown just days earlier of California’s senior U.S. Senator, Democrat Alex Padilla. Some protests elsewhere in the nation were cancelled after a gunman that day assassinated a Minnesota state legislator and her husband, and wounded another state lawmaker and his wife.for creating a “human banner” at Ocean Beach that read “No Kings” and “Yes on 50.” It was a nod to Proposition 50, which voters later passed in the Nov. 4 election, allowing California Democrats to gerrymander the state’s congressional districts in response to similar tactics by Texas Republicans. Latham said the ever-increasing crowds offer an encouraging sign that suggest the nation isn’t comfortable with Trump and his tactics. “We have to keep showing up nonviolently to say no to authoritarianism and yes to another tomorrow where we can build back together,” she said. Jakob Rodgers is a senior breaking news reporter. Call, text or send him an encrypted message via Signal at 510-390-2351, or email him at jrodgers@bayareanewsgroup.com. ‘You allowed her to suffer and die’: Mother of Hayward girl found decomposing in bathroom is sentenced to prisonEl Niño is on the way: What that means for California’s weatherMotorcyclist dies in crash on Highway 4 A girl fled Oregon foster care to find her mom. Four days later she was being trafficked on Vallejo streets, feds say A girl fled Oregon foster care to find her mom. Four days later she was being trafficked on Vallejo streets, feds sayOfficers violate probation of wounded man who survived Oakland mass shooting
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