The president had an odd response to the Saturday "No Kings" protests.Alex Brandon/AP
Saturday’s “No Kings” protests were, as my colleagues chronicled, about as wholesome as you could imagine.
There were inflatable animals. There were American flags galore. Even the New York Police Department admitted that the 100,000 protesters were peaceful and that cops made no arrests; police in Washington, DC and Austin, Texas said the same. But that hasn’t stopped top Republicans from thoroughly melting down over its success.
Case in point: On his Truth Social platform on Saturday night, President Donald Trump posted a Top Gun-style AI video of himself wearing a crown and dropping raw sewage on the protesters from a military plane. (Yes, you read that right.) One of the targets appears to be Gen Z Democratic influencer Harry Sisson. Spokespeople for the White House did not immediately respond to questions about the video from Mother Jones on Sunday morning.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) doubled down on his prior assessment of the gatherings as “hate America” rallies. On ABC’s This Week on Sunday morning, Johnson claimed the protests included “hateful messages” and “violent rhetoric” against Trump. He also dismissed the protests—which took place in thousands of cities and towns both in the US and across the world—as a “stunt” orchestrated by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). “He’s closed the government down because he needs political cover and this was a part of it,” Johnson said. (The protests were not organized by Schumer.)
Official government social media accounts have been trolling the protest theme. The White House posted a photo of Trump and Vice President JD Vance wearing crowns, contrasted with Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) wearing sombreros. On Bluesky, Vance posted an AI video of Trump wearing a king’s crown and pulling out a sword as Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) bows down to him, set to the song “Hail to the King.” The Department of Transportation, very bizarrely, posted illustrations of Schumer and Jeffries dressed as Disney princesses, alongside the caption, “No Kings!!”
As Max Madame, a protester in Oakland, Calif., told Mother Jones on Saturday of Johnson and other Republicans’ attacks: “They’re delusional. We all know that… they know they’re lying, we know they’re lying.”
