Crowds of people angry about the way President Donald Trump is running the country marched and rallied in several Tampa Bay region communities and scores of other American cities Saturday.
It was the biggest day of demonstrations yet by an opposition movement trying to regain momentum after the shock of the Republican's first weeks in office.
The “Hands Off" demonstrations were organized for more than 1,200 locations in every state by more than 150 groups, including civil rights organizations, labor unions, LBGTQ+ advocates, veterans and elections activists. The rallies appeared peaceful, with no immediate reports of arrests.
From the National Mall and Midtown Manhattan to Boston Common and towns like Brooksville, Gulfport and Tampa, thousands of protesters assailed Trump and billionaire Elon Musk 's actions on government downsizing, the economy, immigration and human rights.
Thousands of local residents came out. In downtown St. Petersburg, teacher Brandt Robinson shared on TikTok that protesters were standing at 12 intersections at midday. Major roadways saw sign-holding protesters in Sarasota and Wesley Chapel. Hundreds turned out at Munn Park in Lakeland.
"We're their models, and what we're modeling today is a commitment to not only standing up for our democracy and standing up to Donald Trump and his assault on our rule of law," Robinson said. "But most importantly, that we stand up to defend the fundamental principles and values of kindness and decency meanness and cruelty have taken root in this country.
In Brooksville, in Hernando County, protesters chanted while standing on the steps of City Hall. On X, a person called SusanQWriter said there were a few “MAGA” supporters at the event being held in a rural area known for its conservative voting history and that the Hands Off protesters drowned them out.
In downtown Tampa, a crowd gathered at 3 p.m. at City Hall. Jeff Goldman said he was there because of the “arbitrary” and “irrational” layoffs of people in the federal workforce.
“He's destroying the stock market. He's killing people's 401(k)s, he's irrationally laying off people. He's being vicious when a vicious way about doing this is not necessary,” he said. “His plan is going to put us into a recession, and then we are going to have to spend years trying to unwind this mess.”
Hundreds of people also demonstrated in Palm Beach Gardens, a few miles from Trump's golf course in Jupiter, where he spent the morning at the club's Senior Club Championship. People lined both sides of PGA Drive, encouraging cars to honk and chanting slogans against Trump.
"They need to keep their hands off of our Social Security," said Archer Moran of Port St. Lucie.
"The list of what they need to keep their hands off of is too long," Moran said. "And it's amazing how soon these protests are happening since he's taken office."
The president planned to go golfing again Sunday, according to the White House.
Asked about the protests, the White House said in a statement that "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 programs and crush American seniors."
In Seattle, in the shadow of the city's iconic Space Needle, protesters held signs with slogans like "Fight the oligarchy."
Demonstrators voiced anger over the administration's moves to fire thousands of federal workers, close Social Security Administration field offices, effectively shutter entire agencies, deport immigrants, scale back protections for transgender people and cut funding for health programs.
Musk, a Trump adviser who owns Tesla, SpaceX and the social media platform X, has played a key role in the downsizing as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, an advisory agency tasked by Trump with reducing government waste. Musk says he is saving taxpayers billions of dollars.
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign advocacy group, criticized the administration's treatment of the LBGTQ+ community at the rally at the National Mall, where Democratic members of Congress also took the stage.
"The attacks that we're seeing, they're not just political. They are personal, y'all," Robinson said. "They're trying to ban our books, they're slashing HIV prevention funding, they're criminalizing our doctors, our teachers, our families and our lives."
"We don't want this America, y'all," Robinson added. "We want the America we deserve, where dignity, safety and freedom belong not to some of us, but to all of us."
In Boston, demonstrators brandished signs such as "Hands off our democracy" and "Hands off our Social Security."
Mayor Michelle Wu said she does not want her children and others' to live in a world in which threats and intimidation are government tactics and values like diversity and equality are under attack.
"I refuse to accept that they could grow up in a world where immigrants like their grandma and grandpa are automatically presumed to be criminals," Wu said.
Roger Broom, 66, a retiree from Delaware County, Ohio, was one of hundreds who rallied at the Statehouse in Columbus. He said he used to be a Reagan Republican but has been turned off by Trump.
"He's tearing this country apart," Broom said. "It's just an administration of grievances."
Activists have staged nationwide demonstrations against Trump and Musk multiple times since Trump returned to office. But before Saturday the opposition movement had yet to produce a mass mobilization like the Women's March in 2017, which brought thousands of women to Washington after Trump's first inauguration, or the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that erupted in multiple cities after George Floyd's killing by police in Minneapolis in 2020.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, protesters said they were supporting a variety of causes, from Social Security and education to immigration and women's reproductive rights.
"Regardless of your party, regardless of who you voted for, what's going on today, what's happening today is abhorrent," said Britt Castillo, 35, of Charlotte. "It's disgusting, and as broken as our current system might be, the way that the current administration is going about trying to fix things — it is not the way to do it. They're not listening to the people."
Octavio Jones reported from Tampa. Information from Associated Press journalists Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, Fatima Hussein in West Palm Beach and Erik Verduzco in Charlotte, North Carolina, was used in this report.
