US President Donald Trump has responded to Saturday’s anti-Trump “No Kings” rallies taking place across the US in his typical aggressive style, posting an AI-generated video on his Truth Social platform depicting him as a king.

He is shown wearing a crown and piloting a fighter jet that drops filth on anti-Trump protesters, soiling their clothes and causing chaos among the crowd.

Huge crowds took to the streets in all 50 US states at “No Kings” protests on Saturday, venting anger over President Trump’s hardline policies, while Republicans ridiculed them as “Hate America” rallies.

Organisers said seven million people marched in protests spanning New York to Los Angeles, with demonstrations popping up in small cities across the US heartland and even near Trump’s home in Florida.

House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, on Friday echoed a common refrain among his party, labelling the “No Kings” protests “the hate America rally.”

Protesters spanning all age groups took to the streets en masse for “No Kings” rallies across the United States on Saturday, denouncing what they view as authoritarian tendencies and unbridled corruption of US President Donald Trump.

Organisers expected millions of people to turn out by day’s end at more than 2,600 planned rallies in major cities, small towns, and suburbs, challenging a Trump-led agenda that has reshaped the government and upended democratic norms with unprecedented speed since he took office in January.

Demonstrators filled Times Square in New York City, where police said they made “zero protest-related arrests” even as more than 100,000 people rallied peacefully across all five boroughs.

Events in Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Denver, Chicago, and Seattle also drew crowds that each appeared to encompass thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people.

On the West Coast, more than a dozen rallies occurred around the Los Angeles area, including the primary site downtown. In Seattle, demonstrators filled a parade route that stretched for more than a mile from downtown through the Seattle Centre plaza around the city’s landmark Space Needle. More than 25,000 protested peacefully in San Diego, police said.

The protests reflected growing unease among many Americans, mainly on the ideological left, with developments such as the criminal prosecution of Trump’s perceived political enemies, his militarised immigration crackdown, and the sending of National Guard troops into US cities — a move Trump has said was aimed at fighting crime and protecting immigration agents.

Trump has said little about Saturday’s protests. But in an interview with Fox Business aired on Friday, he said that “they’re referring to me as a king – I’m not a king.”

Saturday’s protests were aimed at building on the momentum gained from more than 2,000 “No Kings” protests that were staged on June 14, coinciding with Trump’s 79th birthday and a rare military parade in Washington.

• Strike halted indirect negotiations to end Gaza fighting.
• Strike had a “metastasising effect” on talks: Witkoff.
• Confidence of the Qataris was lost in US, says envoy.

WASHINGTON: US envoy Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s chief negotiator on the Middle East, has said that he felt “betrayed” when Israel launched a strike targeting Hamas negotiators in Qatar last month.

In a CBS interview alongside Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, who worked with Witkoff on the brokering of a Gaza ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, the presidential envoy said he learned of the September 9 attack in Doha the morning after it happened.

Qatar is a key US ally and acted as mediator in the push to end the Gaza war.

“I think both Jared and I felt, I just feel we felt a little bit betrayed,” Witkoff told the CBS news programme “60 Minutes” in excerpts released Friday. The full interview is scheduled to air on Sunday.

At the time, the strike halted the indirect negotiating process to end the fighting in the devastated Gaza Strip.

“It had a metastasising effect because the Qataris were critical to the negotiation, as were the Egyptians and the Turks,” Witkoff said.

“We had lost the confidence of the Qataris. And so Hamas went underground, and it was very, very difficult to get to them.”

Trump wrote on social media at the time that the decision to conduct the Doha air raid came from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israel and Hamas ultimately accepted a 20-point peace plan presented by Trump that called for hostage and prisoner releases and a ceasefire after two years of deadly conflict.

Under pressure from Trump during a White House visit this month, Netanyahu called Qatar’s prime minister to apologise for the Doha strike.

Huge crowds took to the streets Saturday in all 50 US states to vent their anger over President Donald Trump’s hardline policies at “No Kings” protests that Republicans ridiculed as “Hate America” rallies.

From New York and Washington to smaller cities in Michigan and Trump’s second home in Florida, demonstrations in the eastern half of the United States revved up ahead of similar events due out west.

More than 2,700 protests are planned coast to coast, and organisers say they are expecting millions to attend.

“This is what democracy looks like!” chanted thousands at a protest in Washington near the National Mall, home to the city’s iconic landmarks.

“Hey hey ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go!” said protesters, many of them carrying American flags.

Demonstrators are up in arms over what they see as strongarm tactics since the Republican billionaire returned to the White House in January, including attacks on the media, prosecuting political opponents and a vast immigration crackdown.

A US government shutdown is now in its third week, with the Trump administration firing thousands of federal workers and lawmakers showing little sign they are ready to break the impasse.

Thousands flooded New York’s Times Square, Boston Common and Chicago’s Grant Park.

“I never thought I would live to see the death of my country as a democracy,” 69-year-old retiree Colleen Hoffman told AFP as she marched down Broadway.

“We are in a crisis— the cruelty of this regime, the authoritarianism. I just feel like I cannot sit home and do nothing.”

In New York’s Queens borough, demonstrators carried colorful signs that read “Queens Say No Kings,” and “We protest because we love America and want it back!” while some chanted, “We love our country, we can’t stand Trump!”

In Los Angeles, organizers plan to float a giant balloon of Trump in a diaper. They said they expect 100,000 people to attend.

So far, Trump’s response to Saturday’s events has been muted.

“They’re saying they’re referring to me as a king. I’m not a king,” he told Fox News show “Sunday Morning Futures.”

But his top surrogates were in more fighting form, with House Speaker Mike Johnson calling the day of protest the “Hate America rally.”

“You’re going to bring together the Marxists, the Socialists, the Antifa advocates, the anarchists and the pro-Hamas wing of the far-left Democrat Party,” he told reporters.

Republican lawmaker Tom Emmer also used the “Hate America” phrase and referred to participants as the “terrorist wing” of the Democratic Party.

‘Country of equals’

Beyond the United States, the “No Kings” movement is even organizing events in Canada, and small protests took place Saturday in Malaga, Spain and Malmo, Sweden.

On Thursday, Deirdre Schifeling, chief political and advocacy officer for the American Civil Liberties Union, said protesters wanted to convey that “we are a country of equals.”

“We are a country of laws that apply to everyone, of due process and of democracy. We will not be silenced,” she told reporters.

Leah Greenberg, co-founder of the Indivisible Project, slammed the Trump administration’s efforts to send the National Guard into US cities and crack down on undocumented migrants.

Trump has ordered National Guard troops into Los Angeles, Washington and Memphis. Planned deployments to Chicago and Portland, Oregon have so far been blocked in the courts.

“It is the classic authoritarian playbook: threaten, smear and lie, scare people into submission,” Greenberg said.

Top Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer encouraged demonstrators to let their voices be heard.

“I say to my fellow Americans this No Kings Day: Do not let Donald Trump and Republicans intimidate you into silence. That’s what they want to do. They’re afraid of the truth,” he wrote Saturday on X.

“Speak out, use your voice, and exercise your right to free speech.”