Protests against Trump policies draw millions nationwide, including Bay Area

Tens of thousands of people across the Bay Area joined millions across the country protesting the Trump administration on Saturday. 

From Alameda to San Francisco and Berkeley to Colma, people lined streets, honked and held up signs, as part of the larger so-called "Hands Off!" movement protesting the current administration in Washington, D.C.

More than 1,200 rallies were held in all 50 states as people voiced their anger and concern over President Trump's decisions and the execution of widespread cuts by Elon Musk.

Musk, a Trump adviser who runs Tesla, SpaceX and the social media platform X, has played a key role in the downsizing as the head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. He says he is saving taxpayers billions of dollars.

Demonstrators voiced anger over the administration’s moves to fire thousands of federal workers, close Social Security Administration field offices, effectively shutter entire agencies, deport immigrants, scale back protections for transgender people and cut funding for health programs.

"This doesn't even come down to left and right. This is about what's right and wrong," said Addison Bruce, a veteran who lives in San Francisco. "There's no one who can stop Trump from doing what he wants. The people who should be saying, ‘hey you might want to think about this a little.’ He's like ‘no, fire those people.’"

Others, like Katie Salmon, who attended the San Francisco protest, are concerned about funding cuts for health programs. 

"I'm worried about patient safety and keeping the high quality of medications and sterilization in manufacturing," said Salmon.

Among thousands marching through downtown San Jose, were Deborah and Douglas Doherty.

Deborah, a graphic designer, is a veteran of the 2017 Women’s March and was nervous that fewer people have turned out against Trump this time. "All the cities need to show up," she said. "Now people are kind of numb to it, which is itself frightening."

In a statement to the Associated Press, the White House said:

"President Trump’s position is clear: he will always protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for eligible beneficiaries. Meanwhile, the Democrats’ stance is giving Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare benefits to illegal aliens, which will bankrupt these programs and crush American seniors."

Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign advocacy group, criticized the administration’s treatment of the LBGTQ+ community at the rally at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., where Democratic members of Congress also took the stage.

"The attacks that we’re seeing, they’re not just political. They are personal, y’all," Robinson said. "They’re trying to ban our books, they’re slashing HIV prevention funding, they’re criminalizing our doctors, our teachers, our families and our lives."

"We don’t want this America, y’all," Robinson added. "We want the America we deserve, where dignity, safety and freedom belong not to some of us, but to all of us."

Hundreds of people also demonstrated in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, a few miles from Trump’s golf course in Jupiter, where he spent the morning at the club’s Senior Club Championship. People lined both sides of PGA Drive, encouraging cars to honk and chanting slogans against Trump.

"They need to keep their hands off of our Social Security," said Archer Moran of Port St. Lucie, Florida.

The president golfed in Florida Saturday and planned to do so again Sunday, the White House said.

Activists have staged nationwide demonstrations against Trump and Musk multiple times since Trump returned to office. But before Saturday the opposition movement had yet to produce a mass mobilization like the Women’s March in 2017, which brought thousands of women to Washington after Trump’s first inauguration, or the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that erupted in multiple cities after George Floyd’s killing by police in Minneapolis in 2020.