President Trump rejected the idea that he’s acting like a monarch in an interview conducted on the same day as the nation’s massive “No Kings” protests.
“They’re referring to me as a king. I’m not a king,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo recorded on Saturday, prior to the demonstrations.
Later that day, millions of Americans protested the president and his administration. Roughly 2,600 demonstrations took place across all 50 states, with gatherings in small towns and major cities including New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
Many Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, joined the activists, while Republicans largely backed Trump and criticized the demonstrations.
This marked the second round of No Kings protests since Trump took office. In June, widespread demonstrations coincided with the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary parade in Washington, D.C., which also happened on the president’s 79th birthday.
Late Saturday, Trump shared an AI-generated video to his Truth Social platform. In the video, the president, wearing a crown, flies a fighter jet inscribed with “King Trump” over protesters in New York City and dumps brown liquid on them, all set to Kenny Loggins’s “Danger Zone.”
The protests occurred amid the ongoing government shutdown, which began on October 1. A poll released Thursday by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 75 percent of respondents blame Trump either greatly or moderately for the shutdown. Approximately three-quarters of respondents also said that both Republicans and Democrats in Congress share significant blame.
“We’re cutting Democrat programs that we didn’t want, because they made one mistake,” Trump told Fox News. “They didn’t realize that that gives me the right to cut programs that Republicans never wanted, giveaways, welfare programs, et cetera.”
During the interview, the president also addressed the deployment of National Guard troops to cities across the country. Since Trump returned to office, his administration has sent military personnel to Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Memphis, while facing legal setbacks in deployments to Chicago and Portland, Oregon.
Now, Trump has his sights set on San Francisco. “I think they want us in San Francisco,” the president claimed. “San Francisco was truly one of the great cities of the world. And then, 15 years ago, it went wrong.”
https://wgntv.com/politics-3/trump-on-protests-im-not-a-king/