Breaking News from Pod Save America - Trump's Parade UPSTAGED by MASSIVE No Kings Protest

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

Jon Lovett and Jon Favreau discuss the "No Kings" protests and Donald Trump's pathetic birthday parade. Photos courtesy of AP Photo Archive Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, everybody. I'm here with John. Hi. It was a big weekend for democracy. It's fans. It's detractors. There were the no kings protests all across the country. There's a military parade in our nation's capital. And Trump was said to find out that everybody was hanging out without him. Yeah, a lot of FOMO. A lot of... Let's start by talking about what happened when Trump got his big birthday parade. I think Pete Higgs-Seth introduced it best. To be able to host this parade today, tune in. Let me tell you, you're going to see something. Boy, did we?

Boy, did we? So, John, what was your reaction once you actually saw the parade? Yeah, it was, look, it was a good day for Libbyn Out. Sure. I know people were excited about the parade or how it turned out. I did not expect it to be that lame. I actually thought that it would be a bigger presence than it was. not even to live out about it.

I was genuinely surprised that it was that the attendance was so low and it was so dreary. Yeah. So I had a couple. I first of all, one thought I had watching this was like, why was I so worried about this? You know,

why did I think this was some grand display of authoritarian dictatorship? Because first of all, the turnout was pathetic. People just didn't show up for it. And of course they didn't. Of course they didn't. Who was a constituency for this? But the other part of it too is just like,

It's not our style, you know? It's not America's style to do a big authoritarian military parade. When you see American troops marching down an American street, it just looks like a Fourth of July parade. You know, it just does. It doesn't have the menace that I think, like, in my mind, like they were really trying to do something that felt more like what you would see in other countries, but it just didn't feel like that.

It didn't feel like it. I still think his intention was for it to feel like that. I think that just the military and the audience, did not cooperate. But everyone looked bored. Marco Rubio looked bored. All the people in the stand, Melania looked pretty fucking bored.

Trump looked a little grumpy himself. Fox News was, you know, as you saw there, working overtime to try to make it the most exciting thing ever. I also think, you know, it was overshadowed by much more important news, not just the No King's protests, which were quite larger,

but, of course, the political assassinations in Minnesota, a war between Israel and Iran. So, you know, the New York Times had a great story about how Fox was covering it, like, at the expense of covering almost all the other news. Yeah. Like, it was the most important story to fucking just do color commentary for this dumbass parade. Yeah, the other part of it, too, is all these, like, Republican officials, senators, members of the cabinet all showed up. And it really reminded me of when the Housewives have to go to a new nail polish launch for one of their girls. And they just feel obligated.

And they don't actually think it's a good product or care about it at all. But out of loyalty, they have to show. up and say, look how much fun we're having at the event. I know. We're being really supportive. The whole thing was also very janky. You had these moments. Special thanks to our sponsor, Coinbase.

What kind of country is this? We're kind of busted ass. Sponsored by Crypto. Yeah. The U.S. military. Brought to you by Coinbase. I will say, too, I felt for the troops. Because I started thinking about this when there was a great story last week about

the National Guard troops here in California and how so many of them and their families were talking reporters about this just were sort of felt uncomfortable being here like on the streets of Los Angeles and they know they're being used

and you know I feel like it's the Army's 250th birthday it's right they could have had a parade that was just really focused on the military and their service and instead they had to do this fucking Trump birthday thing and that sucks. Yeah. Well, yeah, and it's, we'll talk about it more when we get to the

No Kings events because I had the same reaction when I saw the Marines downtown, but we'll talk about it because I want to just, Fox News was struggling a bit with how to talk about this. Everybody's saying how excited they are and there was this, this awesome moment. With us now is former defense intel agency officer Rebecca Koffler. Rebecca, what are your thoughts tonight on the incredible symbolism and the messaging that we saw here tonight from the commander-in-chief on the army's 250th birthday i am so excited uh emily and lucas tomlinson everybody like this is incredible finally the united states is uh is back laurence jones you are doing you're you're you're not being man like You guys in prayer, Lucas.

Thank you. I want to thank. Thank you so much, Rebecca. Thank you and thank you for your service, too. Amazing. Amazing. I mean, someone has to fill in for Judge Jeanine now that she's a U.S. attorney. Yeah.

Where is she? Yeah, normally it's Judge, Judge, yeah, normally it was Judge Jeanine's job to have a glass of wine in the evening and just shoot the shit on Fox News. That is incredible. And who knows? Who knows? I guess she could have been sober. Maybe that's just her personality. We don't know.

She said she was not drunk, apparently. She claims, yeah, that's what she's playing. We don't know. Who are we? Well, no, she's just a silly gal. I feel like it would be better for her if she had been drunk. It would be a better excuse than whatever that was. Right, it's like when someone, it's like when you see.

If you weren't drunk, what was that? Right. It's like when someone says, if you say you don't look good in a photo and someone says, no, you look good. It's like, excuse me, I want to not look good in this photo. I'd like to look better in real life. Like, if you're not drunk in that picture, what's wrong with you? I'm glad that she was a defense intelligence. Great.

It seems also. I'm glad she's a former. Yeah, right. Also, like, they must be going down pretty far on the list. Like, I don't, again, anyway, it was a tough day to be state media at Fox News, especially because across the country, millions upon millions of people were protesting peacefully in cities across the country. John and I were both, where'd you go?

We went to West Hollywood. We went to West Hollywood. Yeah. Not quite occupied yet. And me and Tommy went to West Hollywood. Nice. Yeah. Yeah, some eye candy.

And then Ari and I went downtown. What was happening in WeHo? It was just, you know, exactly what you imagine in WeHo. It was like a big, peaceful crowd. A lot of PS, a lot of pod fans. We, Emily came and we took Charlie and Teddy and Tommy brought Lizzie. And we saw some other folks there that we all know. And the mayor spoke from us, Hollywood.

And I don't know, a ton of American flags. and also everyone just like having a good time with a lot of great signs. I don't know. It felt good to be out with people, which is something we always say after protest, but it is hard to remember the longer it is between the times that you go out to protest. But every time you do it, you're like, oh, this felt good. It makes me feel more hopeful about what we're going through.

Yeah, so we went downtown. And what was interesting about that is downtown is where you've had, I was there last week when there was a bunch of unions having a protest. That's where the daily anti-ice protests have been. And there was a big gathering for no kings. And you kind of saw everybody there. You saw the kind of people that had showed up with their no-king signs that were no-king theme.

Then there was a lot of people that were anti-ice, anti what's been going on with these enforcement actions. And it was incredibly diverse, right? You saw that like people had a bunch of different reasons for getting down there. It's probably the most diverse protest I've seen in Los Angeles, at least that I've been to. It's also younger than some of the reports I saw. Some of the stuff on Twitter was like, oh, it's a bunch of, it's boomers. It's like resistance moms and boomers there.

But it was pretty young and diverse. Yeah, I mean, I think I'm sure that if you go to, I think it depends on where you were. I'm sure there are plenty of places where this was like the Women's March and a lot of kind of of the resistance. But what I saw was all the different activist movements kind of coming together, even in the way, it felt being downtown because there was a bunch of people right in front of City Hall. And actually, like, at first, when I got down there around noon, it wasn't that crowded. And then there were all of these kind of independent marches coming down, coming up from the metro. Saw some of the aerial footage of that.

It was, it was genuinely really, really moving. And you saw there were, you know, different speakers and different people on following big trucks that were, like, kind of roving, like, dance parties kind of coming down the street. and then we walked down to the federal building, which has been, I think, like, one of the locus of a lot of the confrontations that you've seen, right? And you're there in front of the federal building and there's all the kind of graffiti that's been washed off and put back and washed off over again. And it was actually pretty small. At first, there weren't a lot of people down there. And then you just saw all these different groups of protesters kind of gathering in front of this federal building. and there are just whatever, a couple dozen Marines standing on the steps of this building. And some people are being respectful and shouting things like, you know, you shouldn't be here,

you know, this isn't right, whatever. Then there are like, you know, people that are venting their anger at these guys. And you just felt for them because, like, they don't want to be there. It's fucking stupid. And then you sort of realize this sort of this incredibly kind of this like Catch-22, which is, why are the Marines there to protect the federal building? What are they protecting the federal building from? People protesting the Marines.

Right? Yeah. And we were, and you just, also, as we were there, you just felt more and more people kind of gathering. And you just see how, like, just Donald Trump and Heggseth and all these guys are just like so feckless and they don't give a fuck. And they don't care that they're basically using these guys as a tripwire or a kind of lightning rod to just be sitting there to gather the antipathy so that it can be a little

bit of a Tinder box, which ultimately will end up with, because you see it in the crowd. Like, it's, it's all, it's all the different swaths of people from the protest. But then as you're standing there, you see people that are kind of ready for a fight that are kind of moving through the crowd. And it, like, we were, we were joking as we were leaving, which is like, we should stay and see what happens. But we can't. We have a bar mitzvah. And so he left. But of course, it wasn't surprising to see, like, I think in the next couple of hours, that was where, you know, the police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to clear everybody out because there, there is having federal agents on the steps of this.

building is creating a lot of tension and anxiety and like a focus for this kind of whatever conflict put together your summer wardrobe with abercromy first step new denim abercumy added new linen blend jeans their lineup they're really lightweight and a comfortable cotton linen blend you need for summer their archive shirt is your next must have cut at a 90s inspired oversized fit that gives a put together but relaxed look pair it with their classic poplin short and you have your new go-to outfit for the season set your wardrobe up with Abercrombie this summer. Shopping the app, online, and in stores. Well, and I also saw a report at a couple places that it was, like, the No King's protest crowd

had moved out almost completely by then, and it was the new typical agitator, anarchist, troublemaker protesters who had been, you know, screwing things up for the last week that moved in for the cops. I will say that moved in, which were ultimately tear gassed by the cops, I will say this. I had been wondering since January whether the feeling that the resistance to Trump this time around is smaller and quieter. Was it real feeling? Like it was accurate? Or was it just a result of the fact that, you know, media has gotten even more splintered and harder to figure out, like, what's actually going on in this country?

And after this weekend, I think it's the latter. Because, like, this, probably around 5 million people showed up across the country. Some estimates, 4 million, 6 million. So around 5 million. And that's going to be, end up being one of the largest single days of protest in American history. And it's, you wouldn't know that from the coverage of what's been going on in the administration since January. And, you know, we can talk about why that might be. but it really made me feel like, okay, this is big.

This is big out there. Yeah, no, I felt the same. And it's interesting because you talk to Erica Chenoweth about this idea that you need 3.5% of a population to show up to be successful. And we're on our way towards that number. And what I've been just thinking about and watching these protests too is there is this missing civic component of American politics right now. because you have a lot of organic protests. Some of it is like what we had with No Kings, which is much more just of a demonstration of popular will and sentiment and awareness.

You have spontaneous protests that are about actually stopping things, right? Shutting something down, right? Those are much smaller still. But the problem, I think, is even when someone like Padilla or Van Hollen or Corey Book or whatever, they take these stance that are impressive and important and genuine, and I completely support it, because they are politicians, everybody understands that they have equities that are different from a civic organization or individuals. And so those are political acts.

And there is this missing middle of what in the civil rights movement the church has led or what in some of the labor movements unions have led. And there is that missing piece. And what I am curious about is, do you need that still? Or does the internet and just changing technology mean you don't need it as much? Or are we still missing the voices, the civic organizations, or the council or kind of collaboration of non-political civic groups to kind of help create the kind of goals, strategies, and just messages that kind of people can get behind.

Because, yeah, you're totally right. Like, I saw it. Like, I saw it downtown that you had no king's protesters. You had anti-ice protests that were largely peaceful. And it wasn't that there were suddenly whole swathes of more kind of whatever people looking for a fight. It was that those people started leaving. Of course you did. You're there for hours. You're there for hours. And as the majority of the people standing there being there just to shout and make their voices heard does kind of keep the whole thing contained.

And as those people disperse, that leadership, kind of natural leadership goes away. Yeah. And I think, look, that middle part that you're talking about, I think, at least from what I saw at the protest we were at, that's starting to happen. And this was a huge credit to our friends at Indivisible Because the person who sort of started the speaking program Where we were was talking about how important nonviolence was How you know we don't even want to interrupt the speakers That we're about to do and we're all here to be peaceful And also like turn to someone next to you who's a stranger

Get to know them because this is how we build movements So I do think there's at least this weekend There was a lot of that and I agree that it's like very necessary And And it also made me think that this movement is really being led by, this is a grassroots-fueled movement. And like the Democratic Party and Democratic politicians are either just going to have to like, you know, learn to work with it or get in front of it.

But they're, but they're not leading it. And nor should they. But I think like they should, like they should have their voices in it. They have their role in it. But yeah, I agree that like there's something happening where you see the indivisible and the other kind of organizations making this weekend happen. And you have, by the way, Pope, Leo speaking and appointing people that are going to stand with migrants and try to protect migrants. You have the union speaking up, not just for the head of the SAU who was arrested, but for Kilmar, Brigo Garcia.

And you start to see kind of people coalescing together. And I think as that happens more, I think we'll start to see, hopefully, start to see more kind of directed protests like this. And I know, that made me feel hopeful. Me too. I too. We'll have more to say about this on the pod that'll be out tomorrow. But do us a favor. Please subscribe to this channel.

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