200K in St. Paul Join 8M Record “No Kings” US Protest

By Alyssa Chen and Michelle Griffith (Minnesota Reformer) – Tens of thousands gathered at the Capitol in St. Paul Saturday as part of the national “No Kings” day of protest, with speakers and singers decrying the Trump administration’s authoritarian policies and ambitions. 

Gov. Tim Walz took the stage dressed in flannel on a blustery day, armed with fierce rhetoric. He attacked President Trump and applauded Minnesotans for standing up to the administration during Operation Metro Surge, the incursion of 3,000 federal immigration officers here that led to the death of two American citizens and the trampling of the constitutional rights of countless immigrants and citizens alike. 

“When the wannabe dictator sent his untrained aggressive thugs to Minnesota, it was you who stood up for our neighbors,” Walz said. “Don’t ever mistake our kindness for weakness,” he added, before introducing Bruce Springsteen. 

The legendary singer belted out his new protest song, “The Streets of Minneapolis.” 

Singing through the bloody mist

We’ll take our stand for this land

And the stranger in our midst

Here in our home they killed and roamed

In the winter of ’26

Brad Reed at Commondreams.org adds,

“Millions of American across all 50 states on Saturday rallied against President Donald Trump and his authoritarian agenda during nationwide No Kings protests

Organizers called it ‘the largest single-day nationwide demonstrations in US history,’ with an estimate 8 million people coming out for events in communities and cities nationwide.

‘From major cities to rural towns that have never seen mobilizations like this before, protesters made clear that in America, we don’t do kings,’ the No Kings coalition said in a statement.

‘This is what it looks like when a movement grows—not just in size, but in reach, in courage, and in more people who see themselves as part of this movement,’ the organizers said.
The American people are fed up with this administration’s power grabs, an illegal war that Congress and the public haven’t approved, and the continued attempts to stifle our freedoms. We’re not waiting for change; we’re making it.’

The rally in Minneapolis was one of more than 3,300 No Kings events across the US and internationally, and aerial video footage showed massive crowds gathered for demonstrations in cities including Washington, DC, New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Diego.
[end Commondreams.org.]

[Chen and Griffith at Minnesota Reformer continue, regarding St. Paul, Minneapolis:]

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has been the left’s most vital spokesman for decades, told the massive crowd that he’d been mulling American history in the past year: “In 1789, they said loudly and boldly to the world that in this new nation of America, we don’t want kings.” 

After reading the opening phrase of the Declaration of Independence, the Vermont socialist added: “Our message is exactly the same: No more kings. We will not allow this country to descend into authoritarianism or oligarchy. In America, we the people will rule.” 

Sanders returned to his most familiar subject, wealth inequality, and also railed against the war in Iran, counting off the estimated deaths of Americans, Iranians, Israelis and Lebanese.

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District and Jane Fonda followed Sanders. Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, a candidate for U.S. Senate, also spoke.

Joan Baez and Maggie Rogers sang Bob Dylan’s protest song “The Times They Are A-Changin,’” which Baez said she first sang in Grenada, Mississippi, where she joined Martin Luther King Jr. in 1966 to protest mob violence against Black children attending newly desegregated schools. The two then sang the Civil Rights-era anthem “Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around” with the Twin Cities Singing Resistance and Brass Solidarity, a band founded in 2021 in response to the murder of George Floyd. Baez and Rogers sang both songs in Washington, D.C. at a gathering the day prior denouncing the Trump administration’s censorship.

Organizers expected more than 3,000 No Kings demonstrations across the country. Minnesota’s Capitol protest was the nation’s flagship event, coming after the North Star State dealt Trump a significant political defeat when backlash from the killing of two citizens and resistance from demonstrators wore down his mass deportation effort here and drove down his poll numbers on immigration, which had been his strongest issue. 

As Sanders said, “When historians write about this dangerous moment in American history, when they write about courage and sacrifice, the people of Minnesota will deserve a special chapter. In the face of unprecedented occupation, this community fought back and won.”

Despite the famous and locally famous people on the stage, regular Minnesotans were often the movement’s most compelling spokespeople, however.

“It’s great to see everybody out because it gives me hope,” said Gretchen Nesset, 59, at Saint Paul College, where a march to the Capitol kicked off around noon. Nesset is a high school teacher and said some of her students stayed home because of fear of the Trump administration’s incursion of immigration agents here. Kids are coming back to school now, Nesset said, “But there’s still so much fear.”

Kathy Rainey, 79, was with her church friend, Jody Chrastek, 68.

“For democracy to continue we have to lift our voices,” Rainey said. “And I need to lift my voice and stand, and to stand against what is unconstitutional and in danger of bringing our democracy down.”

Chrastek added: “I see America drifting in the same way Germany did,” referring to the Third Reich.

Bob Meis, 68, is a retired lawyer who moved to Minneapolis from Iowa in September. He became emotional when he talked about why he attended the No Kings protest, saying he’s angry and worried about his grandson who is in the Marines and may be deployed to Trump’s Iran War.

“It helps knowing how many people are here. I wish there was more we could do,” he said.

Niizhoode DeNasha said he’s an Iraq War veteran who came to “stand up for the Constitution. I enlisted 20 years ago almost now, and I really believe in the Constitution, and I think rights are being trampled. I’m hear to stand up for people as a veteran.” 

DeNasha was with fellow veterans near the front of the stage. 

Hours before the rally Saturday, streets were clogged, buses packed and parking scarce well more than a mile away as throngs — dressed in layers and carrying homemade signs with messages like “No War” and “When did empathy and compassion become radical?” — streamed toward the Capitol.

The thousands chanted: “No kings. No ICE. No war.”

Organizers of the event estimated that 200,000 people gathered, making it the largest protest in Minnesota history.

The first No Kings protest was on June 14, the same day that Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were killed in a political assassination. Organizers say 80,000 Minnesotans attended that No Kings rally. A second No Kings rally in downtown Minneapolis took place in October.

Massive crowds form for the third No Kings rally in St. Paul, Saturday, March 28, 2026. Minnesota is hosting the flagship No Kings event following the incursion of 3,000 federal immigration agents here during Operation Metro Surge, which confronted resistance from tens of thousands of Minnesotans. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

In January, tens of thousands of Minnesotans marched in frigid temperatures in downtown Minneapolis to protest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Federal agents shot and killed Pretti the next day, spurring more demonstrations as well as an apparent shift in the federal government’s immigration strategy.

Alyssa Chen is a Reformer data reporter with a focus on health care policy. Previously, she was a research assistant in health policy at Harvard Medical School. She graduated from Harvard with a degree in statistics.

Michelle Griffith covers Minnesota politics and policy for the Reformer. She’s also covering the 2026 race for Minnesota governor. Most recently she was a reporter with The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead in North Dakota where she covered state and local government and Indigenous issues.

Text and photographs from Minnesota Reformer published under a Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 . An excerpt was added from Commondreams.org under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com.