Trump, round two: largest protest of second admin draws thousands downtown
In a coordinated action described as the single largest protest against the second administration of President Donald Trump, “Hands Off!” rallies across the nation drew over half a million people at thousands of protests in all 50 states on Saturday. Downtown Los Angeles had a share of the action with a protest organized by 50501 SoCal, attracting an estimated peak of 50,000 people.
Early on Saturday afternoon, the event commenced at Pershing Square, where people met at the park's North end, greeted by the aroma of sage and cannabis. By 3 pm., the crowd swelled into a giant ocean of people wielding anti-Elon-Musk and anti-Trump signs.
Trump and Musk, head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), have been scrutinized over recent executive orders and mounting scandals. Trump has signed 111 executive orders (EOs) in 2025 addressing issues like healthcare, tariffs, and national security while also revoking past EOs, some dating back to the Civil Rights Era.
Musk has also been criticized for his role in the federal government and DOGE. To eliminate waste, fraud and abuse, he stated an aim to reduce federal spending from 7 to 6 trillion. DOGE has suggested or implemented mass layoffs and decreased funding to myriad governmental agencies and departments, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, Social Security, the Department of Education, and the National Park Service.
“I think what Musk is doing with all the departments and just slashing them is a bloody nightmare,” said Maggie Freilich, a Santa Monica College (SMC) alumnus.
“We’re out here to protest the executive overreach of the Trump administration. We have more people here than I could possibly count, more than the 10,000 we were expecting. That are all standing up to show that the American people are united against the rise of authoritarianism in this country,” said Hunter Dunn, press and public relations director for 50501 SoCal.
Around 5 p.m., protesters began marching down Fifth Street, following a white stake bed truck that flew a United States flag overhead and LGBTQ+ flags on the side. Sarah Durnesque, a 50501 volunteer, led chants as thousands walked towards City Hall.
Durnesque and protesters chanted to keep “hands off” Palestine, immigrants, Ukraine, Black lives, and Social Security.
“I’m a Holocaust scholar. I know the patterns. We are already way past step one… When you are here legally, even though you are not a citizen, you are guaranteed due process by the law, and in so many instances, they have already deprived people of those rights,” said Durnesque.
At their destination, the rallyers clustered, filtering around City Hall barricades, filling up Gloria Molina Grand Park and going as far back as North Broadway. The thousands of attendees heard activists speak on recent legislation and federal and local issues.
Along with opposing the current state, many were angered by the Democratic Party's response, or lack thereof, to Trump.
“Let’s be real, there’s some imposters in the Democratic Party, too. Those who claim they’re fighting for us, but they confirmed all of Trump’s nominees, they vote to give Trump everything he wants in his budget. Democrats, your time is up. Chuck Schumer, your time is up,” said Francesa Fiorentini, an American journalist and host of the Bitchuation Room Podcast, in a speech.
Diego Camacho, an SMC physics student on a gap semester, was especially moved by the Trump administration’s promises of mass deportations, recently including legal residents and students.
“I come from a family of immigrants and a lot of my family is undocumented,” said Camacho. “This administration is hellbent on the removal of undocumented people, and even those of legal status, as we’ve seen with the student visa… to me, it’s horrific.”
Camacho said, “If you’re afraid that by speaking out or by speaking your mind you’ll get deported, then, what kind of nation is this?”
“I'm very concerned that our free speech, our freedom to teach what we want, our equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts are under serious attack, as well as research money in the sciences and humanities that have been illegally shut down,” said Andrew Apter, professor of history and anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
To Apter, mass protest helps to rectify these issues: “It's important for Americans to realize that a free and open society requires a space of critical thinking that is not dependent upon government approval,” he said.
However, the attendees were far from united under one ideology.
“Obviously when you have 50 to 70,000 people in one area, not everyone’s going to agree on everything,” said Dunn.
“We are a hodgepodge of different ideas of people who have come together under the banner of protesting this administration,” said Camacho.
Although the message was broad, it was specific enough to generate resistance. Tucked in a leafy corner of Pershing Square, denim-clad punks, who claimed to have stopped by accidentally on their way to Hollywood, were donning post-punk merchandise and red “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) baseball caps.
These Trump supporters, Emmanuel Gutierrez and Tray Hicks, along with an apolitical half-brother, said they were attempting to engage in earnest dialogue with left-wing Hands Off! attendees. While speaking to the Corsair, passerby approached the squad to jeer and shove cameras in their faces.
“Feeling a little bit exposed, you know,” said Gutierrez. “What we’re here for is to understand why people hate us.”
All he wanted, he said, was “a smaller form of government that will mind their goddamn business.”
Hicks, a Long Beach City College student, wore a Canadian tuxedo outfitted with Bauhaus band patches. He said the rallygoers were taken with the dichotomy of his political views and his support for the British gothics.
“I love this band right here. Two people came by and said, hey, if the dude (from the band) saw you, they would have burned your shit. And then they flipped me off. The other dude said, you’re not fucking punk, that that bullshit off, I don’t want you to be a part of punk,” said Hicks.
Hicks and Gutierrez said other rallygoers were racially profiling them, calling Hicks a traitor for being Black and a MAGA, and threatening to report Gutierrez and his half-brother to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“It hurt, because these are basically my brothers right here. I love them dearly. And it just sucks that they’re going to be racially profiled just because they don’t agree with what they’re fighting,” said Hicks.
“But those people won’t get to know us. They won’t open their hearts like we will. And that is, that is such a shame. That is sad,” said Gutierrez. “I want to spread love to people, and I want to let people know that not every conservative hates them.”
Conflicts, ideological and beyond, were inevitable, said rally organizers. 50501 SoCal was prepared, sending safety marshals and medics to hover near rallygoers with disabilities, marchers with medical emergencies, and even counterprotesters.
“We keep each other safe, is the basic philosophy behind that,” said Dunn. “People have disabilities and we want to make sure that they’re properly accommodated.”
Chris Kluwe, social activist and former punter for the Minnesota Vikings, gave the last speech of the night. Kluwe was recently arrested at a Huntington Beach Council meeting for protesting the installation of a plaque reading “Magical Alluring Galvanizing Adventurous,” a MAGA acrostic.
At the meeting, Kluwe said he would engage in civil disobedience, began approaching the council dais, and was handcuffed and carried out of the meeting by Huntington Beach Police Department Officers.
“I want our elected officials to understand the urgency of the time that we are in, because we are in an existential crisis right now. Our country is facing a choice, and that choice is, do we want to be America or do we want to be something else. I don’t know about you, but I want to be an American,” said Kluwe at City Hall.
“Do you want to be an American? Regardless of your race or your religion, regardless of who you are as a person, do you want to be treated with fairness, equality and respect? Good, because what we need to do is make it clear to people who oppose that, that they are fundamentally un-American,” said Kluwe. “We need to reclaim the American flag for us, the people. Not the asshole supporting a guy with a crown on his head.”
Kluwe then read the Declaration of Independence to the small crowd.
“That’s what America was founded on, those words,” said Kluwe.
High-level organization allowed for speedy dismantling of the protest promptly after 8 p.m., where the massive crowd had shrunk to a thin line of audience members for self-described “conscious” hip-hop group the Neighborhood Kids.
Though Dunn said the protests will continue as long as Trump wields power, a recent increase in political action at SMC has demonstrated that students are requesting more from their supposed leaders.
“It’s not like SMC has the ability or the authority to sort of stop these abuses,” said Camacho.” I would say that just allowing students to know the SMC administration does not agree with what is currently playing out in our government, I think that’s good, and that’s unfortunately maybe all they can do.”
“America has a very dynamic culture of student resistance. It had an impact on the Vietnam War, it had an impact on the divestment of funds that brought apartheid down in the 80s,” said Apter.
For students, he said, “free speech and political rights for nonviolent protest is a guarantee of a free society of a university and a college campus. Do not compromise. That's my message.”