Protesters gathered outside the White House today to rally against what they described as executive overreach by President Donald Trump, including deportations without due process, the dismantling of federal agencies and threats to higher education, APA reports citing CNN.
The rally was part of a national day of action by the so-called 50501 movement, which aimed to build off the nationwide “Hands Off!” protests that drew large crowds earlier this month. 50501 stands for “50 protests, 50 states, 1 movement.”
Bob — a 64-year-old demonstrator who asked to withhold his last name out of fear for his job at the Department of Defense, where he has worked for 35 years — said that while he is “fiscally conservative but socially liberal,” the Trump administration’s cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs drove him to rally for a political cause for the first time in his life.
“Veterans that come to serve our country earn benefits. They deserve to have those benefits provided for them,” he said.
Bob also blamed Trump’s whiplash tariff policiesfor the loss of “a lot” of money in his 401K, saying that’s part of the reason he’ll take on an additional job rather than retiring soon.
Emily Yanisko, an education professor at American University, said she was inspired to join the protest by Harvard University’s refusal to comply with recent demands by the administration.
Another demonstrator, Gihad Elgendy, expressed outrage over the “genocide happening in Palestine” and what he described as a clampdown on First Amendment rights. He also criticized the Trump administration for the wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, saying he believes Trump “could easily pressure El Salvador to bring him back.”
Elgendy was not the only protester rallying around Abrego Garcia’s cause outside the White House today. A man named Paul, who held a sign reading “End Illegal Deportations,” criticized the administration for flouting a Supreme Court rulingordering it to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return, calling it a “constitutional crisis.”