Bulwark Takes - Massive "No Kings" Protests Happening Across America

Episode Date: October 18, 2025

The Bulwark is live as Americans rally under the banner “No Kings” — a nationwide protest against authoritarianism and Trump’s bid to crown himself above the law. Join our hosts for real-time coverage, reaction, and analysis.

We are live here covering the No King's protest for the bulwark. We've been on the ground, watching it from afar, reporting on it, observing it, in some cases being there with it. I'm joined by JVL, Andrew Eger, Will Salton. I'm Sam Stein. We're all with the bulwark. Fellas, thanks for doing this. Really appreciate it.

It's 2 p.m. So not all the protests are actually started. They are underway, and what you see on the right side of your side. screen is a live stream from the DC rally with Bernie Sanders speaking there. Look, we don't have many facts because, frankly, they're just pouring in. But what we know is 2,700 protests throughout the day in all 50 states. There are, you know, estimates of tens of thousands of people across the country in various cities, but not just cities, local towns, places like the villages, Boston, Charlotte, Orlando, Seattle, Scottsdale, everywhere. Before we get to this and what we're

seeing. I want to start with JVL because, look, we're nine, nine and a half, ten months in to this administration. This is the second No King's protest. This is objectively going to be bigger than the first. And we're just at this incredibly perilous time for the country. The government is shut down as a backdrop to this. Just give me, just, I don't know, step back for these last eight months. How do you feel like we've arrived at this point? How perilous is it? So when Donald Trump was reelected, there were really a couple ways this all could have gone. And one of them was that Trump could have taken office with a very solid Joe Biden economy and he just could have gone golfing, right? You can be like, look at this.

I got, I don't have to go to jail. I'm going to go golfing. I'm going to just relax while they name stuff after me all over the country and just let this stuff go on autopilot. And that would have been basically okay. We would have had a lot of corruption, one assumes, with it. Another way is that he could have been like really focused on corruption and using the power of the office to enrich himself and his cronies. And then the third way is that he could have gone full fascist in ways that some of us predicted was likely. And we've we've got number three.

And behind door number three, we are we are 10 months in. And we have a masked national secret police that conducts itself in ways which are unbelievably unprofessional and antagonistic. We are at a place where the Supreme Court has blessed just racially profiling people and saying that this secret police can detain people just based on how they look or what language they speak. We have a place in which people are now carrying documents with them because they are being detained and asked to. to show their papers, a place where the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff has been fired, the JAG Corps has been decimated. And there is a real push to bring the general flag officer corps of the United States military under, basically to heal.

And at the same time, you've had takeover by Trump cronies of major media institutions and tech platforms, in addition to all the corruption. And I just say that if you took just a list of bullet points of where we are right now and showed them to somebody on November 6th, the day after Trump's election, most people, I think, would have said that is a worst case scenario. That's a 95th percentile scenario. And that probably won't be there. But that is where we are.

And that's why we have this protest movement because people are. Freaked out. Counterpoint? Yeah. We got one and two as well as three. He's golfing, man. You're not wrong. We got the corruption too.

Yeah. And a guy running around, again, handing out Trump 2028 hats, right? Which is, again, a thing that some of us warned about. And, you know, like, it is weird that nobody in Republican politics is willing to say, of course Donald Trump can't be president again. This would be like the easiest statement in the world. And you cannot find somebody in the Republican Party who is willing to say that. Well, let me, let me kick it to you.

I was, I was just following this stuff online. And there was this tweet that Britt Hume put up, old Fox, I guess he's currently still Fox. He said, oh, there's no King's protests, you know, they're protesting a guy who was ran his third presidential campaign, won the majority vote, got elected, isn't overriding in Congress because the government is shut down and he's not steamrolling anybody. He's just doing things through normal democratic means, yada, yada, yada. And people are buying it. They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is, you know, we voted. I mean, the truth is we did vote for him. I'm not going to dispute that. We voted for him. We already people did. But what if the No King's protest about? Why don't you respond to British Hume? Okay.

So, first of all, this claim that Trump is like he's not intervening in the shutdown and letting Congress do its thing. I'm sorry, have anyone heard of Russ vote? I mean, they literally, the executive branch in the presence of the shutdown against the law has taken over the functions of Congress and is unilaterally deciding to get rid of huge parts of the federal workforce, selectively. The president of the United States, the king, literally said that he's going to get rid of Democrat programs. I'm just going to decide to do it because Congress isn't doing his job. So Brits just objectively wrong on that point. Now, they're right. And I saw Mike Lawler was on TV today responding to the no king's rallies and saying that this isn't a king because we elected

him, exactly the point that Brit made. So, but the position, the position of these authoritarian's is once you win an election, and he did win an election, you can do whatever you want. Now, that is democracy, but it is not constitutionalism. And it is in violation of the American constitution. and it is in violation of the general rule of law. So these people are what are, you know, you could call it, Farid Zakaria called it illiberal democracy. You win one election, and at that point, you no longer have to respect the will of the people or the law.

Okay. Andrew, I know you've got to go soon because you're going to go do something that's totally foreign to you on the ground reporting. Good luck. But you've already been, you've already, just kidding. Andrew's great. You've already been talking to some folks in Franconi, which if people don't know Franconia, it's a suburb of D.C.

It's got its own metro stop. It's out there. It's not like bustling, but it's got a lot of people. But I saw your videos, and it looked like, you know, first of all, you said the guy who organized it said 800 people were there, which is a big number. People have to understand that for Franconia twice as much as the first time around. Talk to me about what is going on there, what the vibe was like, why they attracted twice as many people and just sort of general observations.

Yeah, sure. So yeah, I came from one of these. Basically what these are is you have all of these little kind of like neighborhood protests sort of dotted all over Northern Virginia. Obviously we've got like the main event, the big tent up on the screen right there in D.C. So a lot of people from, you know, all around the greater D.C. area have gone to that one. But there's also been a number of these just sort of like street corner protests. And I talked to one of the organizers at one of these out in Fairfax County at Franconia. And, and his basic take. was, first of all, about twice as large as their last one back in June, but not just twice as large. About half of their total signups for this protest just came in the last week or so, which is a little bit understandable because it's been so much, there's been so much discourse in the news sort of like trying to pre-define these no-kings protests. And a lot of that has been coming from Republicans, right? I mean, a lot of this talk has been coming from people like House Speaker Mike Johnson or Majority Whip Tom Emmer or, you know, John. Barrasso and Steve Daines and Ted Cruz in the Senate. And the basic narrative that they have been

trying to get take hold is that this is a hate America rally, right? This is a bunch of radical leftists in the Democratic Party who love Antifa and love Hamas and, you know, love criminals and terrorists and illegal immigrants who are all coming together to really just have a good time commiserating about how much they hate the United States of America. And this has been, I think, a galvanizing thing for a lot of people who identify with the basic aims of the protest, who might not have come out otherwise, but who are like, that doesn't, that doesn't describe me in the slightest. You know, and I talked to a lot of people this morning, you know, how many were Antifa? I bumped into zero Antifa people, but they walk among us. You know, you don't

always know. I talk to a lot of people who had like pocket constitutions and American flags and, you know, like First Amendment swag. Those are always the people who hate America the most. exactly I mean yeah like it's it's it's unless you're out in it it it is like sort of hard to like get your mind around just how sort of star spangled and and like sort of deliberately claim like laying claim to like America as a concept as like as an inheritance for for like you know they they see themselves as sort of like the the genuine sons and daughters of of the American project out here and that's that's a big part of the programming it's a big part of what what they're here to say is especially it's interesting like

kind of coming out of, you know, a number of years in which sort of the Republican Party was, was, you know, wrapping itself more and more in the American flag and trying to lay claim to that. And I think it's sort of like a, no, no, no, you guys are the ones who are betraying the principles that this flag stands for and that this Constitution, you know, put in, codified and everything. And we are the ones who are standing up to say, you know, no, we oppose this not just as Democrats, but as Americans. Just so everyone's, we're, we have a chat going on with this live. Pete, I'm trying my best to monitor it.

So if you guys have any questions or just want to share some thoughts, please participate in that. Maybe if we get some opportunity, I'll grab one from there and post it to the panel here. JV.L. like marinate on what Andrew's talking about with respect to the Republican pushback, Antifa, pro-terrorists, pro-hate. I mean, why? They don't need to do that. I actually think it was stupid of them to do that.

But why do it? It's just because, I know, everything looks like a nail when you're a hammer-type. thing? I mean, there are a couple possible answers. We don't know. The one answer is like, oh, it's just stupid, right? They're just trying to reframe things. Another answer is that they are attempting to move the window on how dissent can be criminalized. Saying it is Antifa is a different thing today than it was four months ago, because today, an executive order has been signed by the President of the United States to clear that Antifa is a domestic terrorist organization.

So now, saying that somebody is Antifa is no longer like saying this is a bad person I don't like. Now it is saying that they are a domestic terrorist, which is that they're a criminal. If the people are domestic terrorists, then they should be arrested. Right?

I mean, if these were ISIS protests and they were being organized by ISIS and the leaders of them were members of ISIS, then one would hope that the FBI's counterterrorism units would be on hand at all these protests arresting those members of ISIS because that's a terrorist organization. They're members of Al-Qaeda, right? And so I, you know, I mean, I'm always the guy looking at tail risk, but I think this is, it is easy for us to say, look how stupid this is now,

because everything has gone okay. but if there were to be an incident either provoked or unprovoked or what I mean look 340 million people in this country there are a lot of crazy ass people right and it is not impossible that you could wind up with a crazy person doing something violent or terrible at a protest

it's not it is not impossible that the type of law enforcement that we've seen from ICE would not show up and just sort of attack a protest right these and so I think it looks to me like laying the predicate to eventually attempt to criminalize dissent. That's what I think it is. I am nervous that one solitary incident will just be a predicate for something pretty harsh from the administrative state. Andrew, I know you've got to jump.

Bill Crystal's in the Wings coming in, little morning shots swap here. Come back when you're done surveying the scene. I want to know what it's like on the ground. But any quick last parting thoughts before we lose you? Nope, I'm going to head to the Alexandria one now, and I'll see you guys in a little bit. Love the minivan, buddy. Great choice of vehicle. All right, Bill Chris is going to join us soon.

Will, what do you think of that? I mean, well, actually, well, let me ask you another question. Because back to the old sort of the idea of what we are actually protesting. And obviously, there's a whole number of policies that have been authoritarian in nature. But what's been referenced a little bit among the speakers and then in this chat specifically is ICE and just the way they've gone about immigration enforcement in this country. It's hard to rank like what do you think is the worst, most authoritarian impulsive policy they've pursued? But do you think that's sort of like the main thrust of this or is there something more to it? So I think it's broader than that. And I think the Republicans would like it to just be about ICE because they would like it to be about, you know, them, the illegal immigrants. But I think the administration has broadened it because they have, you know, because they're sending the National Guard and backup troops into American cities. And that's a, and explicitly from Trump to deal with domestic crime, just just crime in general. So this is against American citizens, American cities. And I think that broadens the context. And I think that's helpful in making the case that this is.

authoritarian. I wanted to pick up on a couple of points. One from Andrew about the hate America stuff that we're getting from the House Republicans. It's at hate America. So as you guys have discussed, all of the imagery from these protests, it's very patriotic. It's just about the authoritarianism. So the position of the Republicans is if you object to the Trump administration's authoritarian tactics, you hate America. They're equating Trump with America. Now that is a monarchic mentality, right? It's Le Ta Seymois, the old French saying. Trump is the state. If you hate him or if you object to him, you don't like America. So they're kind of copping to the authoritarianism and the king's thing, the whole king's thing. And in fact, we have the Trump War Room account

today posting not one but two tweets, just going with the whole monarchy thing, putting Trump in the royal high and the crown. And there's a second one where he's like over at seeing people. So they're really going with this. They love it. They think it's funny. And I think it's a real contrast between the people who take this seriously and the people who think it's a joke. Bill, good to have you, buddy. Good to be with you, though. I come on. It's this kind of gloomy, you know, worried. I'm here. I am moved. What did you think it was going to be? I'm putting JVL-like thoughts out of my mind for at least half an hour. And, I mean,

she big turned out here. I'm in this. I'll tell people where you were. McLean, Virginia. When I went to... The Interested of the Les Resistance, McLean? You know, I had one, Jake's that joke, but you know what? This is like 60, 40, 40% of a claim is for Trump, 50% for Yonkin. It's not that...

Well, it's Virginia, right? I mean, plenty of concern. Plenty of my neighbors are Trump. And a lot of them, actually, ex-Trump Republicans, I posted a sign. I think it's the bulwark thing about I'm an extra... She was a woman who had hosted the, I didn't remember, 20 years before at a Republican, Northern Virginia Republican event. She was the chair of the local county organization,

and now she's showing up at No Kings. But I've got to say, the mood was, it was inspiring. And I have one serious point to make, but I'll first say, it really was moving people. Of course, all the anti-American stuff's ludicrous, lots of mixture of, I'd say, ages, veterans, people wearing caps, you know, from the VFW kind of caps and so forth. And I do think actually the assault, the attack,

the Antifa, they hate America, their terrorist attack in the last week motivated a lot of people to come. People just told me that. They were busy. They were taking their kids to a baseball game, middle league baseball game. If they wanted to go first to this for half an hour,

they were so offended by that. I really do wonder if that backfired. The other thing I was, so anyway, it's very moving. I think the photos are amazing. I'm told by the organizers, they're being very cautious. They were last time responsible.

I think this could be twice the size of the June event. So it could be more like five. That was several million people. Yeah, it could be. million people, not three. And even the three people thought was a little low. So this event here in McLean was more than five times. I'd say five times larger than the event. And we're talking, you know, 150 to 750 where this is a place, but, but many events elsewhere in North Virginia,

Andrews's been driving around to some of those. People think New York could be up into the, you know, high hundreds of thousands or a million. Those photos, I know I grew up in New York, those photos are unbelievable there. But also in rural areas and Trumpy areas, I think I was say at some point you worry about the incident being used as a provocation and then becoming the news story you worry just about the bubbles people are in which god knows is true in terms of media and stuff at some point i'm sure people have studied this i really i haven't uh if you get to five six seven million people it gets big enough that it breaks through the bubbles i should think i mean at some point it's people know people i mean your neighbor you know wherever you are in the country at some point

not literally many many places in the country and not just you know here in north virginia or new york you'll know people people will run into people who went people's kids went people's uh relatives went people's you know parents and other kids in their school went or at the church and i do think at that point if it becomes big enough and i'm just seeing like maybe it has the the protest becomes genuinely can start changing people's maybe not their minds entirely but a little bit their attitude the notion that gee there is something to worry about here and people are not going to flip overnight i understand 180 degrees politically but i think this is this could end up being a pretty important moment i guess i guess i'm I don't know. I guard, I hope that's right. But I do wonder, and push back on me if you want, like, is this too close to it? Is it this? Are we talking about like, you know, just kind of urban centers in their, in their suburbs, right? Like, it's New York, Boston. Huge video out of Chicago just came through my feed, you know. Yes, I know Tim had, Tim Miller had some video from the villages, which looked insane to me. But like, how do you know if it's breaking through? So we don't know, but they went out of their way. The organizers is this for,

extremely impressive, I would say, just having watched people try to do these things over the years, decades. They went out of the way to try to have events everywhere in rural communities and Trump states and Trump areas. And we'll see. I mean, we'll start seeing photos of that and we'll see how many from there and obviously most of them aren't going to be. People are, most of the biggest cities that have these events are going to be presumably not Trump areas and almost no very big cities are, including in red states. But I don't know. I feel like they've tried as hard as they can in terms of both the messaging, the incredible repetition and care they tried to take to prevent, you know, to have de-escalating. They trained, 250,000 people were

trained, or at least to some degree, at least alerted to and got information on de-escalation tactics in case anything happened. So they really went out of their way to try to not provide grist for the Trump Mitt Mill. They really went out of their way to encourage everyone to be patriotic, to to sing American patriotic songs to bring, you know, patriotic placards and so forth. So we'll see how much it penetrates. I agree. It's a for Sam. Well, JV.L.

I mean, but I've got to say they did everything they could to push against the, it's the left-wing bubble. Sure. It doesn't feel to me like, what was the march right at the beginning of Trump won? I mean, the D.C. March. Women's March. Yeah. It doesn't feel to me like that.

If I could just. But JV.L, let me just quickly ask you. Let me correct ask you. Because I guess it gets to the, my concern. I want to say is like we all care about authoritarianism we care about the future of our institutions and liberal democracy we care about

the Constitution do regular voters care about this stuff like do they I don't know I honestly don't know okay so one thing just close the loop on this I mean most of America lives within 50 miles of a major metropolitan area so like

you know to say like oh is it just confined to cities and close in well that's most of the country Fair enough. That is the vast majority of America lives like within as an animal. Here's the thing that I find interesting. You have, on the one hand,

this movement, which is a mass movement, is able to bring people out of their houses on a weekend to gather and, you know, in some cases, get shouted at by Trump voters as they drive past them or whatnot. And this is devoid of All politics except for democracy. There is nothing in here about tariffs.

There is nothing in here about Doge or anything like that. It's pure. This is democracy. And there's a tremendous amount of energy. And then at the same time, you have Mikey Cheryl and Abigail Spanberger running the most important gubernatorial races in the country right now, basically not saying anything about this. It's just talking about cost of living.

And I am interested in that. Because, like, these are not cost of living protests, right? This is, these are not the, no, oh, the rent is too damn high protests. And I, maybe that makes sense. Like, maybe, maybe that when you're running to be governor of a state, it's not a national office. It's not really about democracy. You should be focusing on, like, real things that matter to your voters, I guess. But on the other hand, like, Spanberger and Cheryl aren't blowing people out of the water in polling, you know.

And like, I'm actually a little bit worried about Mikey Sherrill in Jersey. I think the race is, the race seems to be closer than it should. And, you know, I think ultimately she winds up winning that race, but probably not to the, with the margin she could have. And I don't know. Like, it does make, I wonder. And I just, I don't understand. Like, you know, like, I don't think you could get a mass protest movement like this based around kitchen tables. issues. And yet the people who are running for office to oppose this stuff seem like very

reticent to embrace democracy talk. Instead, want to talk about like, well, we got to get the prices down. I don't know. This is the perennial debate, man. This is this is what this is what Harris was having to deal with in 2024. I know. And I'm not the smartest guy in the world on this. So it's hard. It's hard. I mean, I would slightly just prefer a little more. I mean, I think Spanberger does some of that a little more than maybe Cheryl doesn't. I don't know. I think Spanberger is going to win easily. But it also may be that they've got all those voters.

They're all showing off spontaneously, six millions of them to this event. And therefore, you know, the marginal voters aren't and they're speaking to them. It's not quite to my taste, I guess I would say. But I'm open to the proposition that it's a reasonable, you know, tactic and strategy, maybe overthinking a little bit too. I just come back to the millions. I mean, people don't really understand, I mean, they do understand, I think. Let's just say it's $6 million. It could be a lot more, incidentally.

That's a lot of people. I don't have many people going to vote in an off year. I mean, it's obviously much more. But anyway, it's a big number. 8% of all the people who voted for Kamala Harris, right? It came out on a Saturday, middle of the day. Let me just give a shout out to Matt in Key West, who says, Ripley County, Indiana had a couple hundred people.

He's trying to, you know, push back on the heart. Villages there. Speaking of Key West, Key West. We taught of the villages already with Tim Miller's video. And then J.M. Flan says, Lee's Summit, Missouri, you know, I'm a big Lee Summit guy. So he said there's a good turnout there. So keep, keep the comments coming. JVL, I know you've got to go in five.

So just before we lose you, how do you build off this? What do you do to build off this? Or can you build off this? And one more question for JVL. was Show Hay's performance last night the greatest ever a baseball player in one game? Yeah, I mean, the greatest performance

in a, certainly in a playoff game ever. And yeah, it was unbelievable. How do you build off this? I mean, the question for me is much more the timing of building off something like this because that, I think, is the hard part, right? It would be easy to capitalize on this stuff quickly and to build and peak very fast,

but I'm not sure how useful that is, right? I mean, all of this has to eventually culminate in November of 2026. And so you have to slowly build the case and build the mass of people. And you have to be judicious in how they are mobilized, I think. You have to really, I really do believe, and I've written about this, that you have to think about the frame should be as a dissident movement and not as a political movement in the American context, because I don't think we exist in that world anymore.

You know, this is not, this is not like building, like, you know, the anti-Vietnam war or the Tea Party or any other, you know, any other movement that you've ever had in certainly modern American politics. It's much more like color revolutions in Eastern Europe. And I think that is uncomfortable for Americans to sit with. And maybe it's wrong. I mean, it's also possible. I'm just wrong about this.

But the way I think of this in then is you've got to sort of gather strength and slowly builds to the point where eventually, like in the summer of 2026, you are pushing enormous rallies that are focused on New York and Washington, D.C., where you try to put a million or two million people in the streets in Washington or in New York, which makes it's a statement that simply can't be ignored. I forgot who said it, so I apologize for stealing the idea. But someone was saying, you know, this is obviously an act of protest against Trump. But really what this is today is a prelude to sort of the mass mobilizing shutdown of society that might have to come if this general strike. Yeah, general strike. That's what, because that's what ultimately, putting a million or two million people in the nation's capital or the business capital of the country, what that really is, is a. statement that we could do a general strike if we wanted to, right? And that's, that's the signal that that is supposed to send to all the institutions. But I don't know. I mean, we'll, we'll say,

am I crazy, Bill? Is this one you're like shaking. I'm going to hop to it. I see Joe's in there so you can get him on. And I would say one thing that struck me at this thing, at this, just chatting with neighbors, some of whom I knew, some of whom I didn't really. And is they are where the bulwark is, if I can put it that way. They are where we are on degrees. of alarm. This was not a kind of, this is going to turn it around. This protest, now we've shown and they're going to change their ways. This was sort of a, they are using the levers of power. They're going to keep using them. It's going to get worse before it gets better. This is only one step. I was a pretty, it was high-spirited because they were a lot of funny signs and people, you know,

were happy to see each other. And it was that I stay here in Northern Virginia. But there was a real sobriety about the moment that I thought was, you know, was appropriate. good luck hey have fun out there stay safe out there report back to us okay i will thanks guys all right we're going to bring in joe perticone soon um but will we haven't heard from you in a little bit i want to talk about this because timothy snider and there's joe we'll get to you in a second joe's lab in the capital but timothy snider the american historian bill had a nice conversation with him i wouldn't call it nice actually pretty dark it was very dark But to borrow, because we mentioned Shohayotani, Bill and Timothy were trying,

and Timothy Snyder said something that kind of stuck with me, which is that we tend to be these things as a baseball game in which, you know, there's two teams. And then when one side is just breaking the rules, one team is saying, why aren't the umpires, you know, calling the strikes? Why aren't they calling them out? Why are the umpires not doing their job? And Snyder's point was the people are the umpires. They have to get their head around the idea that the institutions, the referees, don't exist in longer.

The guardrails are gone. The courts aren't going to do the job they're supposed to do. There aren't the guardrails in Congress. There's a little opposition. But the people need to understand that they are the umpires in this kind of hackneyed metaphor. But it kind of did resonate with me, I have to say, in that this is one of the few remaining guardrails that the administration might have to respect. Yeah, I mean, the institutions that we, the passive citizenry, expect to step in, haven't stepped in. And, you know, so we have to step in.

There's the live question of how much we care about this stuff. I think part of the function of these rallies is to just put together the picture. I don't begrudge, just responding to what JBL said, I don't begrudge Cheryl and Spanberger and other Democratic candidates focusing on kitchen table issues. And I believe that the Democrats were right to make the shutdown about a kitchen table issue about health care. The job, it's not either or. We're doing both. And these rallies are about the other part of the picture, the authoritarianism. And what we're doing is we're pulling together stuff that ordinary people in their daily

lives, they hear about it, but they don't really put it together. The, you know, corrupt prosecutions, the firing of prosecutors who don't prosecute the president's enemies, the corrupt pardons of the president's friends. We just had another one, George Santos. The sending troops into American cities, the defying of courts, the usurpation by the executive of congressional authority. All this stuff, these are all processed things. And part of our job is to put it together in this picture of monarchy, authoritarianism.

It is what is happening. And it is as simple, Sam, as what you just said. There is a man at the center of this who will take, who is taking as much power as he can take from other people until he is stopped. And no one is stopping him. You don't have to like come up with some fancy, you know, seminar language about what that is. It is a seizure of power that is only stopped by other people staying. in his way. And so this is an attempt by the citizenry to begin to stand up. We had a lot of people stand up in the last No Kings. More this time. If we get to Bill's point about how many people

show up millions and millions, there will be, I'm sure there already are on Fox News and Newsmax and the House Republicans will have video of this. There will be some crackpots out there, some Antifa types. There will be somebody with some Hamas type of stuff. And the right will try to make that the story. And part of our job is to overwhelm that little tiny numerator that the right wants to focus on with the massive denominator of ordinary people, patriots who are showing up at these rallies. Joe, what's the situation on the hill? Why the hell are you there? So I came up. They're not there. I came up here because it's my home away from home and the Wi-Fi's better and it's just up the hill from the actual protest. But I spent the whole week

and a half listening to Speaker of the House, Republican senators say that this was going to be pro-terrorism, pro-Hamas, hate America rally. And like, I saw more babies and strollers than I did Palestinian flags. Lots of, like, people of all ages. And it was just tons and tons of people, clearly from the area, a lot from maybe outside the area, attending the satellite rallies that we've seen everywhere else. But it was really massive. I don't think I've ever seen a protest this big here. And I've seen, you know, the 2020 summer protest that turned into riots. Can't be bigger than the Women's March.

That was massive. That was really big. But this is pretty close. And the fact that they figured out their location better. The Women's March was like everyone kind of swarmed in this. I got up on the press riser and I could not see the end of it. And where were you, Joe? you were at one end of the mall, just for people.

I was like right at the stage, so right by the Capitol. And then you could see, like, all the way down to what used to be called the museum. Just so people are aware, just so the mag of folks who are watching this are where. That's the part you guys stormed on January 6th. That's the one where you were climbing on, and then you knocked on the windows just to get your bearings. I haven't seen any counter-protesters either, which I was sort of half-expecting. In addition to that, the security's been very chill, lots of free movement everywhere. Capital Police, many of them who are not supposed to be working this weekend, aren't being paid because of the shutdown, are out there and they're just kind of chill.

I think they understood it in the ways that the speaker said this could be violent. Capital Police didn't buy that, and you can tell by their demeanor, because they've seen violent rallies like January 6th. And so they're all just chill leaning. What about the lawmakers? What elected officials are there? I want to get on that for a second. Chris Murphy was one of the first speakers. Talked to him for a bit.

And then Adam Schiff was down there, but I don't think he was speaking. He was doing some crowdwork and some YouTube stuff himself and some random creators. And then Bernie was the final one. In between that, though, this was somewhat surprising, if I can be critical, is that there was a lot of talk post-20204

of not listening to the, groups and every single person up there is like a part of some group and so there's kind of had that classic democratic organizing feel to it but amongst the crowd it is it is not that it is no if i could just add one one point to which i was in the i think the five or six biggest rallies they felt they had to have speakers and stages and they had them as you say and i do think that always falls into the trap of we got to have this person and then it looks more like a democratic convention sort of outdoors or something like democratic national convention they made a conscious decision at almost all the others though including here for example not to have speakers so it was all

people standing at this big intersection big ish intersection of in this case uh dolly madison and old dominion waving signs milling around chat people honking at the people people then from got bigger so people on both sides of the street and then spilling of you know further and it was really that feeling of a party or a picnic or whatever you want to say not listening to speeches and i asked one of the people involved in the organizing. And, of course, we had a ex-Barbara Comstock, an ex-Republican member of Congress, who is now never Trump.

There were other people here who would, you know, recognizable to I was some people from groups, and you could have had a roster of speakers, so they purposely chose not to. So I think from at least at the non- They had some speakers. Murphy was there. Yeah, well, in the state.

I was saying DC and New York and Boston had that kind of, you know, big rally speaker feel, but I give them credit for not doing that. You know what they should have done? You know who they should have had speech? Marjorie Taylor Green. She's got her whole turn. I overheard some I heard overheard some come on that would be great. There were a handful of people. Come on. They were just like, have you

have you seen what she's been up to? And they were like, I don't really trust it, but I like it. I was just like, that's very funny. That's a good anecdote. But for example, like, yes, there's a stage down here. Yes, there are speakers. But that's actually the least kind of attended zone. Right. There are all of these little satellite speaking of like random people, people dancing. And so people have their own setups. It's just kind of this giant area. And obviously the stage is the focal point. But there are people, you know, it's like an ocean of people. And so it's very different. And I'm like, like I said, members of Congress telling me that it was going to be this, you know, pro Hamas hate rally. And it's like everybody there is either a family or an old person. I saw like 30 different types of dogs, Corgi. grayhounds, you name it, not George's Corgi, another one. And so, like, it had the real feel of, like, when you guys were talking about kitchen table issues, like, these are normal people who would normally care about kitchen table issues, but we're showing up for this kind of thing.

Well, I'm going to let you go in a second because Mon is coming on, but I want to noodle on this a little bit about, you know, how elected officials should be leaning into this or who's doing a good job handling this? I'm kind of curious for your thoughts on that. You know, I think everyone is spooked by the fact that Kamala Harris in the last two weeks of the presidential campaign tried, she, you know, there was the whole tour with Liz Cheney, there was the whole, you know, this is about authoritarian. There was the speech on the mall. And it didn't work. I, you know, and I think a lot of people just feel like there isn't, I think there is a legitimate concern that authoritarianism starts out as a process. concern. It's like, well, what does that mean to me? Donald Trump is offering to control crime. And, you know, Trump's whole message is, I got people in Chicago who don't care who does it. They don't care if it's the troops. They don't care if it's the cops. They don't care if it's

the president. They just want to control crime. So his bet as Americans don't care about process, about that kind of thing. And it is a challenge to make people understand that this is a material thing to them. But I think, to go back to a point that I think Bill and JVL made, what, what ultimately makes the sale is the administration itself. It is their steady encroachment to the point where people feel it. They start out with it's just ice. It's just illegal aliens. You, Mr. and Mrs. America, don't need to worry about it. And pretty soon, it's federal troops in your streets policing you. They're in your life. And then that's kind of the message. Bill, do you have any final thoughts while we bring me there? I think, and this is Joe's point, too.

I don't know what it was like at all the bad. I talked to the text of someone at the New York City. stuff and there's a couple of speakers but it's so massive you can't hear them most places and people are it's more like a party than a convention i'd say certainly out here and there as people are chatting about kids and grandchildren and dogs all this stuff they're not like obsessively focused on their occasional chance there's a lot of sign waving a lot of honking from people so i feel like that for me makes it more impressive and maybe more meaningful actually something that people will enjoy have enjoyed being at It wasn't, I say most people here probably came out of a sense of duty, but I think when they were there felt a sense of really enjoyment and satisfaction at being there. So that, I thought that was nice.

Yeah, no, I think that's right. I think people just really want to release, honestly. I think people are just like, freaked out, fed up, anxious, and there's not been much by the way of collective positivity. And this is why I was kind of asking Will, and maybe Joe, you could pick this up while we swap in, hopefully Monas Audios Fitch. I just don't think anyone's been able to channel that kind of positive agenda or at least a reason for people to get up and excited. And so that's why these sporadic events like this do have, I don't know, they get people out in the streets. It's helpful. Bill, we'll see you later, man.

Thank you. We're going to swap in Andrew Eager. Thanks all of you. Mona, I don't know if your volume is working. Now's now. Can you hear me? Perfect. Okay. Good.

Where were you? I was in D.C. at the big one. So I was at close to where the stage was, but too far away to actually hear the speakers. The very first thing that happened was my husband and I were walking to the rally, and my husband was wearing a bulwark t-shirt. And a lovely couple said, you're from the bulwark. you know, and they gave us a big high-five. So that was like our first introduction to the No King. That's awesome.

And the, okay, so I didn't hear everything that everyone else has said, but I'll just report that the, you know, there is this sense in the country that so many people feel and that we hear, I think, a lot from our audience at the board, too, which is what can we do. We are beside ourselves. What can an individual do? And I've got to tell you, there are millions of those people who now feel like they are at least being heard, that this is something to do in this moment. And where it goes from here, I don't know, but it is very just psychically healthy that people got a chance to make, feel like they're doing something to express that terrible grief and fear that they have about the direction of the country.

Yeah, that's what I was just saying. I feel like there is a collective desire for just some constructive habit, right? Yeah. You can bang your head. You can bang your head all day. You can doomscroll all night and just feels like there's not much to be happy about. And when you have an event like this, it at least allows you to channel that. Well, we got undercover Antifa agent himself.

Andrew Eger live from, is that, are you still in Franconia or are you somewhere else now? I'm in Old Town Alexandria now where there's, as you can tell, they've kind of just gotten some programming going behind me here in the last few minutes. I'm trying not to

be like, you know, rude, hollering over it all, but yeah, I don't know how well you can even see the crowd behind me. It's a good turnout here looks like about a, I mean, I've always been horrible estimating crowd sizes. Looks like north of a thousand people would be my guess. But, you know, it's all. in this, you know, this park downtown in old town.

And like I said, people are, it just kicked off here about 15 minutes ago, so people are still sort of streaming in. Yeah, we've been getting in the comments section, is this kind of remarkable how many separate towns are each having their own satellite protests? So like a woman from Bismarck said there were 600 or so in Bismarck, North Dakota. We have Dayton, Ohio, Bend, Oregon.

I'm just, David City, Nebraska. Never heard of the place, right in Michigan. Wow. I mean, there's places all over the country. I can't admit I was like a little bit anxious and skeptical that this was going to be. I knew there was a lot of anticipation for this. I was a little anxious and skeptical was going to be a big deal. But in me, at least at this point, 245 p.m., it seems like huge turnouts across the country.

Joe, let me just go quickly back to you because Mona raised a logical follow-up question, which is, okay, well, people need. to not let people want to savor something positive. Tomorrow they're going to wake up. The government's still going to be shut down. Democrats are still going to have to figure out what to do around that. They're still going to be pushing for the Obamacare subsidies, things like that. You know, you talk to these people all day long.

What do they take from demonstrations like this? I think Democrats are obviously still dealing with a big brand problem electorally, but I think they're going to be very heartened by what they've seen because, you know, seeing a mass opposition can indicate, and like we said, a lot of these people may not be your typical, reliable blue voter, that can be really inspiring for them as they head into the midterm elections. But as far as, like, Mike Johnson can expect, like, why weren't these violent? And I haven't really seen much chatter about, like, little dustups, because there can always be dust-ups at any protest.

But, you know, the idea that they were branding this as, you know, this could be, you know, the liberal version of January 6th. And it just hasn't been that. Well, let's get some photos here, because I have to, I have to push back.

We have some photos of violent demonstration and at least one in TIFA member. If you can see it, oh, there's the violent demonstration there. A lot of inflatable people. A lot of inflable people. And we have one of a, you know, can we get the Antifa, the actual antifa? We did find someone. There it is. Look, it's the shirt. He says, I am in. What is he

doing with the band? The shirt's fine. That's one thing. But the band diana around the neck. There was something about you should wear yellow to the protest to identify with other global protests around the world against autocracy. They explain that. It's beginning at the press tent. Yellow is the color of the rally. It's considered peaceful color. That's why the press badges had yellow on him. Got it.

Gotcha. Well, you know, George's shirt is a choice. Sam, I talked to one... Sorry, I talked to one older lady at the protest here in Old Town just now who was carrying a sign with a frog on it that said amphibah. And she told me it was in solidarity with all of the inflatable costume. you know, Ravel Rousers up in Portland.

I mean, like, the, the goofiness is, like, a real thing, right? I mean, like, like, I've seen a number of people in those same sorts of, like, inflatable whole body, you know, cartoon character costumes and things like that. And it is very much like, like, they're all kind of just clowning on the notion that, you know, they're sort of violent gang members in any respect. But also, you know, like, it's, we shouldn't just clown on George, right?

It, like, it takes a certain amount of hoods, but to wear that shirt to this. protest when, when, you know, they are actively being termed a domestic terrorist organization by the White House. I mean, that's not, that's not nothing, right? I mean, one other thing on that, right, which is like, I've talked to a couple of federal employees out here who are a little skittish to be on video. You know what I mean? Like, they were like, I don't really want my face, like, out there because I'm worried I'd be fired for my job just for attending this protest. And I mean, like, that's just like a striking sort of indicator of where we are as well at this

point. I mean, like, the, the chilling effect has been real. And it's, it's, it's striking that the, that the protests are, again, just sort of this dramatically well attended, even given sort of that, that chilling effect and that fear that's out there. I think it really is sort of a blowback against that that culture of beer that they're trying to instill. Monica, go ahead. You're trying to get it. Yeah, the people that, that we encountered today, everyone was incredibly upbeat. Everybody was happy to see what a huge turnout. I mean, it was, it was we were packed in like sardines on pennsylvania avenue um and but i you know it was an unbelievably friendly and clever crowd i have to say i took photos of a bunch of signs that i thought

were great like some you know these just a little homemade signs remember they said that all the signs were going to be like industrially you know produced and all that they were all on hold on one second yes you didn't george source didn't give you your individual sign because i got one I did, and I forgot. Yeah, yeah. But, you know. I interrupted your thought. No, it's okay.

This idea that George Soros is out there handing out signs to everybody. It was always the way. It was. But my favorite sign was a gal who put a picture of Trump, and it said, does this ass make my country look small? Which is really good. But in any event, I do. Look, you can't talk about these rallies, though, without acknowledging that because it's an anti-Trump rally, it also brought in a lot of left-wing activists.

There were a lot of Palestinian flags. There were a lot of, you know, Kaffa's being worn at where I was anyway. I believe that in these protests, you really shouldn't have any flag except U.S. flag or anti-Trump flags or whatever. So I think that detracts and it's not great, but, and there were really a lot of Palestinian flags. But that much having been said, I think that was definitely a minority. People were from every different age group, every different, you know, demographic group. And there was a real feeling of solidarity. It was the most cheerful day that I've had in quite a long time.

Yeah. No, and I think that's what happens. You know, it's one thing to have a demonstration when Trump is not in power and the diversity of the coalition can become hard to manage. But when Trump is in power, you're going to have a lot of people come together under that umbrella if we don't want to deal with this. We don't want to have to deal with this. I'm just going to give a shout to people who have been chiming in in our chats quickly, saying they've attended a variety of different protests. Rio Rancho, New Mexico. Carrollton, Texas, right in California, Boonville, Indiana, Birmingham, Alabama, Littleton, Colorado. I mean, God, there are protests like all across the country is incredible, incredible. Can I say one other thing, Sam, which is that, so, you know, I mentioned there were maybe too many Palestinian flags for my liking, but there were also, like, unbelievable numbers of people dressed in patriotic costumes, dressed as the Statue of Liberty. dressed as Uncle Sam, all of that. There was one guy who had a huge placard that was a Lincoln quote. I took a photo of that. You know, it is, it was a sort of reassuring display of traditional American patriotism.

There were a lot, there were people handing out pocket constitutions. You know, it was, it was, there were a lot of signs about, you know, that this is lawless, that this is what he's doing is un-American. So it was, there was, there was, there were jokes, of course, and there were bad, you know, and, you know, hilarious things. But they were also, there was a serious, really sort of sober recognition of the moment in a lot of those signs, I would say. Joe, I'm going to let you go in a second because I want you to head back out and talk to some folks there. But final thoughts from the Capitol. What's it like there?

I mean, it's just massive, and one thing I've noticed that Mona made me think of in the describing the costumes is that, like, you know you have a very serious political movement on your hands when people are dressed up like the Founding Fathers. It only happens like once a decade, and I saw a bunch of people in pantaloons and tricorn hats. And, you know, that's what indicates it. Are you wearing pantaloons right now? We can only see from... I'm wearing some world.

War II military chinos. You're going to go back out there. Good. Good for you. All right, Joe, thanks a bunch, man. Looking forward to seeing what you got in his go-to newsletter, press, pass. Everyone should be scored. You know, I should have mentioned this. Why didn't I mention this? Joe, you can head out.

Subscribe to the bulwark, folks. I just want to give a plug while we get JVL back in. Subscribe to the Bullwark because we're doing stuff like this. We're sending people out to the rallies. We're doing reporting. We're doing analysis. We're doing it on YouTube. We're doing it on Substack.

We're doing it on podcast. We're doing their video. We are writing newsletters for you. It's incredible, fun, informative, important work. And it really depends on people like you to help us sustain this mission. So if you get the chance, if you have it in you, if you want to support a democracy-oriented institution of independent journalism, do subscribe to the book. We genuinely appreciate it. All right, JVL, give us a little.

Where are you? So I'm in Denville, New Jersey, and this is a very, very small town in suburban North Jersey. I expected, it's one of these places with like a little two-block main street and an ice cream shop and all that. I frankly expected this to be like 25 people. And this is not even like the most prominent place in town instead of being on Main Street. It's like tucked away off of Main Street by the library. And I thought there was going to be 20 people. There's got to be 1,000 people.

I am genuinely stunned. Denville, New Jersey. And they are, I don't know if you can hear, because the mic is using my iPod mic, but it's just cowbells and shouting and chanting and all the cars that drive past honking. And, again, I just couldn't be more surprised. I thought I was going to have, you know,

I was on the show with you guys for 30 minutes. I thought to come down here. hang for 15 minutes and then come back, again, just gobsmacked. Never imagined you would get this many people in a town this small, in a place which is frankly not very democratic. Like this is a, this is kind of a red spot in New Jersey. So it's wild. I mean, not super red.

I don't want to give it the wrong impression, but this is a just, you know, I would say probably a 50-50 town split-wise. Have you talked to anyone? Have you talked to anyone about why they came out? Talking to people. No, I haven't done that, Sam. I'm sorry, are you misunderstanding my role? That's not what I do.

No, I was here for like five minutes, and I had one guy come up to me like, hey, JBL, how are you? Well, you aren't wearing the hat, you got the hat, the blaring blue. Yeah, yeah, where my blue ballworked at, which is everybody loved. I love it. Yeah, can you guys hear the audio from behind me?

No, no. It's nuts. I mean, really, it sounds like you're at a sporting event or something. Just constant honking, people yelling, the cowbells. It's wild. Yeah. Incredible. You know, it's really hardening to see this, honestly.

Again, it's funny. My whole disposition has kind of changed from the beginning of this live street to now. Where I signed on, I was like, okay, this is nice. Like, I'm glad people are coming out. everything seems so damn hopeless and like you know what are you but no as I'm watching this channel

I mean again I'm just going through names people are dropping their location in our channel Monticello Arkansas I never heard of Monticellarkey Portsmouth New Hampshire Toledo Ohio West Brookhead Massachusetts I mean they're all over the country Palm Springs Palm Desert

it is unreal how many locations there and it is actually some of there were protests over in Europe early morning hard times right yeah in Nice in Nice France yeah amazing amazing as if they don't know enough their own troubles but anyway there's a lot of Canadians in our chat I love you Canada just going to apologize again yeah but they they seem to be sending mostly we're so sorry this is happening to you responses but I appreciate it Trinity Florida Torrance California Monterey California Lincoln Nebraska Raleigh

Heathsville, cheese, Lake Oswego, Oregon. There's just constant, constant, constant stream of places. Go ahead, Mona. At the risk of getting carried away with optimism. And ABL is right there. So he'll rein me in in two seconds if I get too optimistic here. But, you know, sometimes leaders come along and torque a society. in a direction they want to go.

And other times, the leader sees where the people are and says, there go my people I need to get at the head of this parade because it's out there. And I am wondering if one of the effects of what we're seeing today is that some up-and-coming leader is going to say, you know what, this country is not inert. the people are not you know hopeless and they there's an appetite for a different kind of leadership in a different direction and i'm going to get i'm going to get ahead of this i'm going to lead it yeah i hope you're right i honestly hope you're right i'm not i haven't seen anyone take the reins yet honestly no that's true but the opportunity is sitting there the opportunity is sitting there

Andrew Hager is back with us. Andrew, where'd you go, buddy? I wasn't sure whether you guys still wanted me, and people were starting to give me some dirty looks in terms of having, like, my phone talking a lot while there's programming happening and everything. So I moved a little bit away. We'll see whether, we'll see whether I am. I'm still committing a social faux pop sometimes. Not at all. So we're actually going to be closing up this live stream in a little bit, just a few minutes because we've hit an hour. I'm not going to foreclose the possibility of doing more video today.

Let's see what happens. But Andrew, just give us your last thoughts from being on the ground. And then JVL, same to you after he's done. Yeah, I mean, I've just been struck by the size. And I think that has been the most important thing about today. Obviously, you know, today ends and everybody goes home and Trump and the Republicans still have all the power. And nothing has like materially changed, right? But I mean, size really is its own argument in terms of something like this, right?

And there have been a lot of attempts to sort of diminish this to say all these people, people are, you know, paid agitators and, you know, along to different organizations. Like, there's, there is not a, like, left-wing benefactor in the world rich enough to pay however many million people all across America, you know, day laborer wages to come out and, and, uh, and do this protest today. Um, and I think that that's what we're seeing in, and again, all over the D.C. area, but not just all over the D.C. area, all over the country. Um, and it's been a really interesting and remarkable thing to see. Excellent. All right, JVL, give us some closing thoughts.

Hopefully, not just, you know, hopefully there's a little some optimism in there, hopefully. I mean, I'll give you this. What I'm seeing here is a lot of people who on a Saturday afternoon, look, everybody's got yard work to do, they've got shopping to do, they've got their kids sports ball games and whatnot. These people showed up. They took time. They took, you know, we'll wind up being basically half of, a quarter of their weekend, right, to do this when you put it all together at the time. But then I'm looking at all the signs and like, I would say probably half the people here have signs with them. And the signs are overwhelmingly handmade. And that is another piece of time that goes into it. Like to make a sign, you got to go to Michaels. You got to get the poster board. You've got to sit down with your markers. Like, I mean, it's,

If you're looking at intensity, one of the metrics for intensity is how much of people's time are they willing to give to something. And between the signs and the costumes, and again, I mean, this sounds like this is a very gauzy, touchy, feely stuff. But if you're trying to gauge the, what is that minimum of effort needed to get somebody into being engaged and active, right? going to a protest like this, thanking a sign, having a costume. Those things are all investments of time and energy that are required. And I'm pretty impressed

by what this turnout here says about the activation level. It's pretty interesting and hopeful. God help me. God help me for being helpful, Sam. Look what you did. Oh, my God. This is insane.

Look what you made me do. I made JV. El hopeful. Crazy. I never thought I'd see the day. All right, Mona, what are your last thoughts? And then I'm going to close the show with my last thoughts. You know what my last thought is? My last thought is that JVL, who says he doesn't like to interact with people, and he's basically shot and all that. Every time he goes to an event where there are a lot of people, he comes back, unbelievably energized, less pessimistic, you know, feeling better, feeling hopeful. It never fails. Just wanted to. say, more people, JVL, more people.

More people. I'll take it under advisement. All right. This is what I'm going to do to close this out. Five minutes ago, I was commenting on how amazed I was at how widespread these protests seem to be. And I was just listing a few locations.

As I was doing that, I was watching our chat. And it went absolutely ballistic with locations. Arlington, Texas, Lincoln, Nebraska, Washington, Pennsylvania, New Zealand, wow, okay. New Orleans, obviously, San Jose, Great Falls, Montana, Pottstown, Pennsylvania. About a thousand folks, says Terry Sturgis, came out in a small town. Denville, we just talked about Denville, JV, Woodstock, Georgia, Shoreswood, Wisconsin, Round Rock, Texas. I don't know if these places are made up, it's possible.

Toledo, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Canada, Canada, Canada, Canada. Vancouver Island, Tacoma, Washington, Arvado, Colorado, Harrison, Bird, Virginia. I could go on and on and on. Two things. One, it does get to how incredible the protests are today. But two is it gets to how incredible our community is, that people from all over the country and the globe are tuning into this little live stream with us on the ground and in our living rooms, watching collectively this protest and trying to find some sort of commonality and a little bit of threat of optimism in what is a remarkably distressing time. And I said it earlier, but I'll say it again. One of the great benefits I've had in my career is getting JVL to hire

me and latching onto this community so I can be part of this journey with everyone from all those towns that I just read and that I can do things like this that are meaningful and that matter. And so I hope as you watch this, and as you listen to JVL, Andrew, Mona, and everyone else who joined the live stream, that you find this helpful, that you find this important in that you become a subscriber to this mission. And it is a mission. It's not just journalism. It's a mission. So JVL, Mona, Andrew, thank you guys for doing this. Really appreciate it. To everyone who is watching, you who's commenting, thank you for doing that too. We genuinely appreciate it. We love our community. subscribe to the bulwark and we'll be in touch. Thanks.