Another nationwide day of protest is set for this weekend. Here’s what we know about ‘No Kings’ 2

By Lauren Mascarenhas, Josh Campbell, CNN

(CNN) — As President Donald Trump arrived at his military parade in Washington, DC, this June to a 21-gun salute and members of the crowd singing “Happy Birthday,” about 5 million people across the country took to the streets to protest his administration. Now, amid an ongoing government shutdown and Trump’s push to deploy National Guard troops to American cities, millions are gearing up for round two.

More than 2,500 demonstrations – about 450 more than were planned in June – across all 50 states are slated for Saturday in the second round of “No Kings” protests, which aim to broadly reject what organizers describe as Trump’s “authoritarian” agenda.

Some Republican leaders have labeled the protests as anti-American. House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed, without evidence, that Saturday’s planned rallies have contributed to the ongoing government shutdown.

When the first round of “No Kings” protests took place, Trump had just barreled through the first five months of his second term with hundreds of executive orders and other moves targeting birthright citizenship, protections for transgender people, student protesters, federal diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and more.

Tension over immigration raids reached a fever pitch with protests in Los Angeles, where Trump federalized the California National Guard against the wishes of Gov. Gavin Newsom – a move that experts warned was an unprecedented and dangerous escalation of presidential power.

Over the summer, the administration has only “doubled down,” protest organizers say.

ICE agents, under pressure to meet the administration’s arrest quotas, have performed raids throughout the country, sometimes met with fervent protests by community members. Trump has called on the Justice Department to prosecute his political opponents, former FBI director James Comey and Attorney General of New York Letitia James. The administration has challenged unflattering media coverage, resulting in a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times and the suspension (and eventual return) of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

And the administration has escalated its attempted deployment of federal troops into Democratic-led cities, like DC, Memphis, Chicago and Portland.

Local and state leaders have pushed back against the National Guard deployments, and legal battles are still playing out in court.

Some Republican politicians have branded the upcoming protests as “Hate America” rallies. GOP Sen. Roger Marshall alleged “professional protesters” and “agitators” will show up, and Johnson suggested participants would be “pro-Hamas” and “Antifa people.”

But organizers are planning for peaceful demonstrations aimed at providing a clear contrast to the administration’s recent show of force.

Could the protests prompt more military force?

“We’ll have to get the National Guard out,” Marshall recently said about Saturday’s protests. “Hopefully it’ll be peaceful. I doubt it.”

CNN has reached out to the White House for comment on the possibility of National Guard deployment to Saturday’s protests.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday directed the state’s National Guard to deploy troops to Austin ahead of a planned protest his office characterized as being “antifa-linked.”

Texas Democrats were quick to condemn the move.

“Sending armed soldiers to suppress peaceful protests is what kings and dictators do — and Greg Abbott just proved he’s one of them,” Texas House of Representatives Minority Leader Gene Wu said Thursday.

Indivisible Project, the nonprofit organizing the protest, has trained tens of thousands of people in safety and de-escalation, and organizers are working directly with cities that have a National Guard presence to make sure they are prepared, its co-executive director, Leah Greenberg, said.

In other areas, organizers have been working to educate protesters on their rights, in the event troops show up somewhere unexpected.

“We do not expect there to be any need for the National Guard to be deployed, but if the Trump administration attempts to do that as a way to intimidate peaceful protests, we are prepared for that,” Deirdre Schifeling of the ACLU said Thursday at a meeting of protest organizers.

“What we are expecting is millions of people around the country collectively showing up to oppose authoritarianism, corruption and attacks on our neighbors and our rights,” Greenberg told CNN.

The administration has already planned another celebratory military show of force in California set to take place on the same day of the protests, Newsom noted Wednesday.

Organizers hope to build on the momentum of June’s protests and the Hands Off! and 50501 protests this spring. They’re confident the movement has grown steadily in response to the administration’s actions.

For local leaders who have tried to push back against what they describe as federal overreach in their cities, Saturday may provide an opportunity to send a message.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is set to headline the No Kings event in her city this Saturday. Following recent protest activity in Boston, Trump threatened to pull the FIFA World Cup out of Massachusetts next year, a move Wu says Trump does not have the authority to make.

It’s possible the protests could prompt the administration to send more military force into cities, said Elizabeth Goitein, a senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

The memorandum Trump used to send the first round of federal troops into Los Angeles can be used to take similar action around the country, Goitein, an expert on presidential emergency powers, told CNN.

“Under this memorandum, troops can be deployed if there are entirely peaceful protests,” she said, calling it “a direct attack on First Amendment freedoms.”

And almost any violence on the part of individual protesters could end up bolstering the administration’s case for calling in troops, she said.

“So might the administration use the protests this weekend as justification to deploy troops? It certainly looks that way,” she added.

As for whether people will see troops on the ground in new locations as protests play out Saturday, Goitein noted that it takes some planning to mobilize troops and direct them to a particular location.

“It can’t be done at the snap of anyone’s fingers, so if we were to see the military deployed at these protests, that means it was in the works beforehand,” she said.

DHS advises local agencies to mitigate potential for violence

Ahead of the “No Kings 2” protests, Department of Homeland Security officials are warning about the potential for certain events to become violent.

In a DHS intelligence report sent to law enforcement agencies around the nation Thursday, and obtained by CNN, DHS said it is “concerned” about the potential for violence at the demonstrations, “based on several events in the United States in 2025.”

“Throughout these events, we observed behavioral indicators associated with violence and geopolitical developments that have historically driven violence at similar events,” the agency said.

The intelligence brief was meant to make law enforcement aware of indicators of possible violence at protests and ways to mitigate them in advance. It did not indicate that US national security officials were aware of any specific and credible threats, nor did it identify any planned protests by name.

Particularly concerning behavior police should be on the lookout for includes the attendance of demonstrators “with a history of exploiting lawful protests to engage in violence” and demonstrators who have engaged in paramilitary-like training, according to DHS.

Other potentially concerning behaviors included “protesters or counter-protesters engaging in harassing or intimidating behavior, which may escalate to physical violence,” and any indicators individuals may seek to distract and divert police away from an area where criminal activity is planned, the report said.

In order to prevent and counter any possible violence, the intelligence report said law enforcement should communicate with mass transit agencies for awareness of increased travel to a particular area by people from outside the area, and consider limiting protests and counter protests to specific areas.

DHS said law enforcement agencies should also proactively “establish liaisons with the protest organizers and counter-protest groups” and “clearly communicate legal parameters and guidelines to protest and counter-protest organizers so all parties understand the legal limits of activity before enforcement action is taken.”

‘A big tent’ protest effort

As the government shutdown continues to threaten federal workers’ jobs and seeps into daily life, some Republican lawmakers have suggested that the protests are a distraction compounding the shutdown.

Asked when the shutdown will end, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said this week, “There’s a thought out there that they’re at least waiting ‘til this crazy No Kings rally this weekend … No Kings equal no paychecks.”

Greenberg called the criticism “transparently ridiculous,” saying the protests were planned in September, before the government shutdown, and are “a big tent effort” encompassing a range of political identities and viewpoints.

Greenberg also pushed back against the idea that the protests are anti-American.

“No Kings is about as American a value as you can imagine. It is as American as apple pie,” she said.

“My husband and I were at the flagship event in Philly in June – the birthplace of the nation, which is why we chose it, and we led the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance,” she added.

Greenberg co-founded the progressive grassroots network Indivisible with her husband Ezra Levin in 2016 in response to Trump’s first election. It’s grown to include thousands of local Indivisible groups, which function autonomously but coordinate with national staff.

The network encompasses the nonprofits Indivisible Project and Indivisible Civics, which organize protests and trainings, and Indivisible Action, a separate political action committee aiming to elect progressive candidates.

Greenberg said she’s aware that organizations like Indivisible that have taken a public stance against Trump may be targeted by the administration.

After conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s death, Indivisible joined more than 500 nonprofits in an open letter condemning what the groups described as the use of government power to target liberal organizations and threaten First Amendment rights.

Trump has recently taken aim at billionaire investor George Soros for funding “violent protests,” calling for racketeering charges against the philanthropist, and the White House has called Indivisible a “left-wing activist group” that has “received more than $7.6 million” from Soros.

Soros’ long-running nonprofit, Open Society Foundations, has provided millions in funding to Indivisible over the years, along with a vast number of predominantly left-leaning causes. Indivisible Project received almost $8 million in contributions from various sources in fiscal year 2023.

“We’re heartily aware that there are ongoing efforts to kill organized opposition – to retaliate, to come after people who stand against Trump and his agenda,” Greenberg said. “We’re aware of those things, and also we believe that we have one path forward, which is to continue to exercise our constitutional rights.”

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CNN’s Celina Tebor and Ashley Killough contributed to this report.