OAN Staff Blake Wolf
12:45 PM – Sunday, April 6, 2025
Thousands of protests took place across the nation on Saturday to rally against President Donald Trump’s administration, federal job and funding cuts, immigration reform and reciprocal tariffs.
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Despite the majority of Americans believing that the U.S. federal government debt is unsustainable, according to a recent Harvard CAPS/Harris poll, protesters gathered in opposition to Trump and Elon Musk’s spending cuts.
Thousands of protesters descended on Washington, D.C., on Saturday as part of the “Hands Off!” rallies nationwide, in effort to “stop the most brazen power grab in modern history,” according to the movement’s website.
“They want to strip America for parts—shuttering Social Security offices, firing essential workers, eliminating consumer protections, and gutting Medicaid—all to bankroll their billionaire tax scam. They’re handing over our tax dollars, our public services, and our democracy to the ultra-rich. If we don’t fight now, there won’t be anything left to save,” the website states.
“Hands Off!” is a “grassroots movement” organized by a coalition of Democratic and left-wing groups, including the activist group Indivisible, and MoveOn.org, among others.
Activist William Barber II was one of the first speakers at the D.C. event, who stated that President Trump and Musk, “want to be dictators and want to be kings and lords, they are afraid of the power of love and truth and justice!” according to the New York Post.
“They are afraid of your unity and diversity. Well, let’s keep them afraid until they change,” he continued. “This is an outright battle for civilization! We are not going to bow to power drunk neo-fascist extremists.”
Democrat Representative Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who served as the chief prosecutor in President Trump’s 2021 impeachment trial, also spoke at the D.C. event, calling Trump an “economy-crashing dictator.”
Raskin told protesters they have “the right to call the president deranged for crashing our economy, destroying $6 trillion of wealth and turning my 401k into a 201k.”
“No moral person wants an economy-crashing dictator who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing,” he added.
Meanwhile, thousands of protesters also simultaneously gathered in New York City express their opposition to President Trump and Musk.
“I am protesting what is happening with this blessed country, the democracy that was advanced democracy now in transition to a dictatorship, and we are almost in a fascist state right now – only because the rule of law is bending right now, and it may break,” stated Ukrainian immigrant Yalena, who spoke with Fox News.
“I am outraged,” stated one resident living in Ridgewood, Queens. “The Republicans in Congress are enabling Trump to do many, many things. Everything he’s doing is wrong, and they know it, and they are enabling it. The Republicans must go. They’re causing chaos. People have to vote blue for every office, always.”
Despite the hysteria targeting the Trump administration, President Trump’s second term average approval rating is sitting at 45% according to a Gallup poll, much higher than the Democrat Party’s approval rating which has fallen to a record low of 29%.
GOP affiliated critics of the protests, including Musk, have questioned the authenticity of the so-called “grassroots movement.”
Rhode Island GOP Chairman Joe Powers responded to the nationwide protests, stating that the “protest wasn’t grassroots—it was Astroturf, rolled out by the same insiders protecting political privilege over people.”
“It’s not the people exposing waste, abuse, and fraud who are the problem—it’s the waste, abuse, and fraud itself. Why are the Democrats working so hard to defend bloated spending, unchecked bureaucracies, and programs that fail the people they’re supposed to help? What exactly are they hiding? Is it because their taxpayer-funded debit card finally has a daily limit on it?” he continued.
“It’s offensive to hardworking Rhode Islanders to see political operatives parading as grassroots advocates while demanding no oversight, no accountability, and no limits on spending,” Powers added. “Every dollar wasted by Washington is a dollar stolen from taxpayers who are working harder than ever to make ends meet.”
“If the Democrats are truly worried about helping people, they’d clean up the mess–not try to cover it up. Rhode Islanders deserve leaders who protect their wallets, not political insiders who protect their own interests.”
Musk also responded in a series of X posts, pointing out clips of protestors not having a solid understanding of why they are there to begin with.
“The problem is the puppetmasters, not the puppets, as the latter have no idea why they are even there,” Musk wrote with a video attached showcasing protesters struggling to engage with the reason they are protesting after being questioned.
Musk also reposted an X post by independent journalist Mario Nawfal, who claimed that the protests are “astroturf—NGO-backed, donor-funded, and fake as their outrage,” while showing video footage of “hired” protestors being bused in and given “pre-made signs handed out assembly-line style.”
“It’s a union of grifters and bureaucrats trying to stop Elon from cutting off their taxpayer-funded gravy train,” Nawfal added.
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