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    Tens of thousands rally against Trump at DC ‘Hands Off’ protest

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    Demonstrators estimated to be in the tens of thousands gathered in Washington on Saturday in a display of mass dissent against Donald Trump’s policies that organizers hoped would snowball into a rolling cycle of protests that could eventually stymie the US president in next year’s congressional elections.Anger with Trump and his billionaire lieutenant, the SpaceX and Tesla entrepreneur Elon Musk, was expressed in a sea of placards and banners on the Washington mall, in the shadow of the Washington monument. Multiple messages denounced the two men for shuttering government agencies, cutting jobs and services and – in often graphic terms – for threatening the survival of US democracy.“Resist like it’s 1938 Nazi Germany” and “Fascism is alive and well and living in the White House”, read two slogans at the Hands Off gathering, organized by the civil society group Indivisible and featuring speeches from a host of other organizations as well as Democratic members of Congress.The rally, which coincided with roughly 1,000 other similarly themed events across the country, was punctuated by a fusillade of barbs aimed at Trump as well as Musk, whose infiltration into government agencies through the unofficial “department of government efficiency”, or Doge, without congressional approval, and cash-fueled interventions in election races have been seen as anti-democratic affronts.View image in fullscreen“They believe democracy is doomed and they believe regime change is upon us if only they can seize our payments system,” said Jamie Raskin, a Democratic representative from Maryland who is the party’s top figure on the House judiciary committee.He added: “If they think they are going to overthrow the foundations of democracy, they don’t know who they are dealing with.”Saturday’s events followed weeks of anxiety among anti-Trump forces that the president had railroaded through his agenda in the absence of adequate resistance from congressional Democrats and minus the displays of popular mass opposition that appeared early in his first presidency.But they also came days after the Democrats drew encouragement from victory in a race for a vacant supreme court seat in Wisconsin into which Musk had unsuccessfully ploughed $25m of his own money to support the Trump-endorsed Republican candidate.It also followed the roll-out of Trump’s flagship policy of import tariffs, which triggered massive plunges in international stock markets and fueled fears of an economic downturn.Multiple speakers and attendees said they hoped the rallies would embolden other American disillusioned by Trump’s policies to join future rallies, giving a fledgling protest movement much-needed momentum.View image in fullscreen“We want to send a signal to all people and institutions that have been showing anticipatory obedience to Trump and showing they are willing to bend the knee that there is, in fact, a mass public movement that’s willing to rise up and stop this,” said Leah Greenberg, Indivisible’s executive director.“If our political leaders stand up, we will have their backs. We want them to stand up and protect the norms of democracy and want them to see that there are people out there who are willing to do that. The goal of this is building a message.”Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, a consumer-rights advocacy group, told the crowd: “There’s only one thing that can face down the authoritarian moment we are facing, and that’s the movement we see here today.”Asked by the Guardian whether the mass demonstrations were sufficient to stop Trump, he said: “It’s not a one-time thing. It’s got to be a sustaining phenomenon. There’s been a lot of criticism of the Democrats for not standing up in Congress, so an event like this will stiffen their spine.“It’s about making the Democrats better and giving them courage – and it will. That’s also true for ordinary people, because Trump’s authoritarian playbook is designed to make people think it’s useless to resist. This demonstrates power and it will bring in more people.”Several congressional Democrats predicted the rally would inspire more protests, ultimately fueling an electoral triumph in next year’s congressional midterms, when control of the House of Representatives and the Senate will be up for grabs.“This is what freedom fighting against fascism looks like,” said Eric Swalwell, a representative for California. “This is not the last day of the fight, it’s the first day. When it all comes to [be] written about, you will see that April 5 is when it all came alive. Energy and activism beget energy and activism.”View image in fullscreenSeveral members acknowledged that protests were rarely enough to supplant authoritarian governments, as demonstrated in countries like Turkey and Hungary, whose strongman leaders, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Viktor Orbán respectively, have survived in office despite repeated episodes of street protests.“We invited some historians in to discuss that question,” said Raskin. “They said, in some countries there was just a legislative parliamentary strategy, and that only succeeded about one-third of the time.“In other countries, there was just a popular-resistance strategy, and that succeeded a little bit more than a third of the time. But when you have a popular-resistance strategy and an effective legislative strategy, it wins more than two-thirds of the time. It’s not a guarantee, but you need to have national mass popular action at the same time that you’ve got an effective legislative strategy, too.”Representative Don Beyer, whose northern Virginia district – home to 75,000 federal workers – has been disproportionately affected by Musk’s assault on government agencies, compared the effect of Trump’s actions to the upheaval wrought by Mao Zedong in the Chinese cultural revolution.But, he said, Trump would be derailed by next year’s election, which he said he was “somewhat confident” would be ‘“free and fair”.“They’re not perfect [but] the people do have a chance to speak,” Beyer said. “Elections are very much decentralized and organized precinct by precinct. There are lots of chances to push back. We just saw that in Wisconsin.” More

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      ‘Hands Off’ protests take off across US and Europe to oppose Trump agenda – live

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      Also speaking at in Washington DC was Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of the Women’s March.Carmona said:
      We are exercising the People’s Veto on Musk, Trump, Zuck–all these broligarchs–who want a country ruled by bullies to benefit billionaires. And they don’t care what–or who–they have to bulldoze to make it happen.
      But here’s the thing: We are the majority. Workers. Students. Parents. Teachers. Activists. We are the backbone of this country. Not the elites. They’re scared that a movement this large can threaten their power.
      But despite all the nonsense they’ve put us through, we’re still here and our numbers are growing.
      What I know is true about Women’s Marchers, and what I suspect to be true about everyone here today is that we are not afraid of hard work. That’s who we are: regular people who stepped up when there was work to be done…We are enough, and I believe that we will win.
      The strength of a movement isn’t measured by our easy wins, but by the hard days when we showed up anyway. And that’s what we need to do. Work hard. Work together. That is true people power. That is how we win.”
      Speaking in Washington DC, the former commissioner of the Social Security Administration, Martin O’Malley, told demonstrators:
      You and I are different. We do not believe, as Elon Musk believes, that you only have value as a human being in our country if you contribute to his economic system that makes him wildly rich.
      No, you and I are different. Elon Musk thinks that the greatest waste and inefficiency are people that don’t contribute to his economy. Therefore, the elderly who can’t work, people with disabilities who can’t work, they’re the wasteful inefficiency. Elon Musk is going after you and I.
      Protesters across the US rallied against Donald Trump’s policies on SaturdayThe “Hands Off” demonstrations are part of what the event’s organisers expect to be the largest single day of protest against Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk since they launched a rapid-fire effort to overhaul the government and expand presidential authority.Here are some images coming from Hollywood, Florida, where demonstrators are protesting against Donald Trump’s administration:Hundreds of protesters – including Americans living abroad – have taken to the streets across major European cities in a show of defiance against Donald Trump’s administration.On Saturday, demonstrators rallied in Frankfurt, Germany, as part of the “Hands Off” protest organized by Democrats Abroad, Reuters reports.In Berlin, demonstrators stood in front of a Tesla showroom and the US embassy in protest against Trump and the Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Some held signs calling for “an end to the chaos” in the US.In Paris, demonstrators, largely American, gathered around Place de la République to protest the US president, with many waving banners that read “Resist tyrant”, “Rule of law”, “Feminists for freedom not fascism” and “Save Democracy”, Reuters reports.Crowds in London gathered in Trafalgar Square earlier on Saturday with banners that read “No to Maga hate” and “Dump Trump”.Protesters also gathered in Lisbon, Portugal, on Saturday with some holding signs that read “the Turd Reich”.In addition to large US cities, anti-Donald Trump protests are also taking place through the US’s smaller towns, including in red counties.Here are some photos coming through BlueSky from St. Augustine, a small town in Florida of 14,000 people in a red county:Jamie Raskin, a Democratic congressman from Maryland and the party’s ranking member on the House justice committee, said today’s demonstration was part of a “creative and nimble” strategy to resist Donald Trump.Talking to the Guardian, he said mass protests needed to be combined with a “smart legislative strategy” to be effective.Studies of authoritarian regimes abroad had shown that a strategy of either mass protest or legislature resistance did work on their own, he said, in response to a question about the failure of demonstrations to unseat strongman leaders in countries like Hungary, Serbia and Turkey.Here are some images coming through the newswires from across the country as thousands take to the streets in demonstrations against Donald Trump’s administration:About 600 people registered for the event, billed as a “Hands Off” rally, at the Ventura Government Center on Victoria Avenue in California.Ventura, with a population of 109,000, is a laidback beach and agricultural community with a vibrant cultural scene, about 65 miles north of Los Angeles.Leslie Sage, mother of two, drove up from nearby Thousand Oaks and said: “I’m a white woman and I want everyone to know white women don’t support Trump.” Sage’s sign read: “Russian Asset, American Idiot.”She came with her friend Stephanie Gonzalez. “As a double lung transplant recipient, I’m outraged that access to medical care and funding for research is at risk. This president is deranged.”People showed up from Ventura but also Ojai, Thousand Oaks, Westlake Village, Camarillo and Simi Valley.Harlow Rose Rega, an eight-year old from Ventura, came with her grandmother Sandy Friedman. Harlow made her own sign: “Save my future.”Friedman is worried about her social security. “I worked my whole life and so did my husband. Now I’m afraid Trump will take it away,” she said. Signs indicated protesters are worried about a range of issues – racism, national parks, health care, environment, veteran benefits, grocery costs and more. Some people said AI helped with their signage but refused to create anti-Trump slogans specifically so they worked around that.In Ventura, a chant of “Donald Trump has got to go. Hey hey ho ho!” started amid lots of cheers and honking cars.A mix of English and Spanish songs is also blasting from the mobile sound system. People are in good spirits and friendly with peacful though loud protests and no evidence of Trump support.Several hundred vociferous anti-Trump demonstrators converged on a traffic circle in Florida’s Fort Lauderdale suburb of Hollywood Saturday morning to vent their rejection of the 47th president’s policies and myriad executive orders.Chanting “hey hey, ho ho, Trump and Musk have got to go,” the predominantly white protestors jeered motorists in Tesla Cybertrucks and hoisted a variety of colorful placards that left little doubt where they stand on the topic of Donald Trump.“Prosecute and jail the Turd Reich,” read one. Some reserved special ire for the world’s richest person: “I did not elect Elon Musk.” Others emphasized the protestors’ anxieties about the future of democracy in the U.S.“Hands off democracy,” declared one placard. “Stop being Putin’s puppet,” enjoined another.“This is an assault on our democracy, on our economy, on our civil rights,” said Jennifer Heit, a 64-year-old editor and resident of Plantation who toted a poster that read, “USA: No to King or Oligarchy.”“Everything is looking so bad that I feel we have to do all we can while we can, and just having all this noise is unsettling to everyone,” Heit said.Heit attended a protest outside a Tesla dealership in Fort Lauderdale last week, and the Trump administration’s frontal assault on the rule of law and the judiciary has outraged her.“We’re supposed to be a nation of laws and due process,” she said, “and I am especially concerned about the people who are being deported without any due process.” More

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      Trump will not stop until every American relic reflects his imaginary world view | Kellie Carter Jackson

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      Last week, Donald Trump issued another executive order, this one aimed directly at the Smithsonian Institution, and called for “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”. He contended that the Smithsonian had “come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology” and that it advocates “narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive”. Specifically, the order targeted American history and art that focused on stories of race and racism.Being responsible for the distillation of the nation’s narrative is no small thing. The Smithsonian oversees 21 museums, libraries, research centers and the National zoo. Every year millions of people visit various sites that are free to the public. The collection of museums represents the pinnacle of public history and the story America tells the world about itself.But Trump’s executive order is not about restoring the truth. Quite the opposite. It creates false narratives and myths that promote the supremacy of whiteness. This executive order has the potential for harm because erasure is violence; it robs the public of the truth. Because there is no way to explain slavery and segregation as not “inherently harmful and oppressive”, Trump would rather not explain it at all.One of the most popular Smithsonian sites is the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), affectionately known by Black people as the “Blacksonian”. The museum was conceived of as early as 1915 by Black veterans who fought during the civil war and wanted recognition for their service and valor. These soldiers were not only left out of national memorials and ceremonies, but also faced tremendous discrimination often culminating in deadly violence when they returned home. They wanted a space and memorial that would honor their achievements and pivotal contributions.It was impossible to separate the story of Black military service and valor from racial discrimination and violence. Similarly, one cannot separate out the “good” from the “bad” in creating an honest narrative about the United States. Accordingly, the NMAAHC holds a special place in America, one where the complexity of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are recognized as founding fathers and slaveholders. There is no abolitionist movement without slavery. There is no suffrage movement without women’s denial. There is no civil rights movement without racism and oppression. These are the facts. Museums exist to collect, preserve and exhibit the past as it happened. Archivists and curators care deeply about their mission to be accurate and authentic.An America that will re-erect statues and rename military bases after Confederate generals, while simultaneously stripping the evidence of race and racism from the Smithsonian history museums isn’t correcting the historical record. That nation is whitewashing the political record to legitimize the actions of those in power. Slavery is a fact. Jim Crow is a fact. Racist and exclusionary immigration laws are a fact. Japanese internment is a fact. Native American removal and extermination is a fact. Mexican and Mexican American expulsion is a fact. Removing them from the sight of the public doesn’t change the facts, it only changes one’s perspective on and relation to them politically.Museums offer cautionary tales, hard lessons about where the country has been and where we hope to never be again. They hold a great deal of public trust, perhaps more than schools, media, newspapers or even films. Patrons get to experience first hand documents, letters, original photographs and artefacts. Museums are public time capsules of where we have been. I will never forget seeing Emmett Till’s casket, Harriet Tubman’s shawl, Nat Turner’s Bible or an early flag of the First Republic of Haiti. These artefacts do more than defy the odds by still existing; they tell a powerful story about who people were during the times that they lived. Museums should not be party to culture wars. Our history is a collective memory whether Trump likes it or not.A nation that cannot reckon with its past, triumph and tragedy, is ultimately a weaker one; puffed up with its own delusions of grandeur. There is more power in the truth than there is in a lie. The efforts in the last 50 years to give the powerless a place politically, academically and legally is not from a revisionist view of American history, but rather a move to make all of America the democratic nation it claims to be.Moreover, key features of the NMAAHC reflect optimism, spirituality and joy because anti-Blackness is not the totality of the Black experience. The museum showcases Black food pathways, artistry, music, sports, film, ingenuity and technological advancements. It is a celebration of achievement despite the barriers and challenges racism presents. But even if museums solely focused on slavery, they still deserve a right to exist. America has been a land with enslaved people longer than it has been a county without slavery.Are museums contested spaces? Absolutely. No one space can include everything and offer an exhaustive history of a country, person or movement. But what is included or not included is painstakingly considered. Museums are bipartisan sites where everyone can grapple with the good, bad and the ugliness of nation making. But Trump will not stop until every American relic reflects his imaginary world view, a place where few can see their lived experiences on full display. More

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      Under Trump, Kennedy Center’s Classical Offerings Will (Mostly) Go On

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      The Kennedy Center’s flagship opera company and symphony orchestra announced Thursday that they plan to present robust and fairly typical programs next season, the first full season since President Trump took over the institution.But one prominent work was missing from the lineup: Gregory Spears and Greg Pierce’s “Fellow Travelers,” an opera set in the 1950s about two men working for the government who become lovers. The work was withdrawn by its creators because of concerns about Mr. Trump’s takeover, according to a letter obtained by The New York Times.Washington National Opera said the 2025-26 season would include classics like Verdi’s “Aida” and less commonly heard works like “Treemonisha,” an opera by the ragtime composer Scott Joplin. The National Symphony Orchestra is planning warhorses by Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich and world premieres by Carlos Simon, the Kennedy Center’s composer in residence; Valerie Coleman; and others.In a sign of the political sensitives at the Kennedy Center, the leaders of the opera and the symphony declined to be interviewed about the new season.The center has been in flux since Mr. Trump purged its previously bipartisan board of Biden appointees and had himself elected chairman. The president’s actions have prompted an outcry, leading some artists to cancel engagements there in protest. The musical “Hamilton” scrapped a planned tour there next year.The classical field, in which seasons are planned years in advance, has largely been unaffected. But the creators of “Fellow Travelers,” an opera based on the 2007 novel by Thomas Mallon, confirmed this week that they were pulling the work, which was supposed to have its Washington premiere next year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Elections

      D.C. Plane Crash Echoes Boston Skating Club’s 1961 Tragedy

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      Two months after the D.C. plane crash killed 67, including six people affiliated with the Boston club, the members had to prepare for the world championships. Unfathomably, they had a blueprint.One floor above the ice rinks at the Skating Club of Boston, there’s a lounge that would have hosted a party after January’s U.S. Figure Skating national championships.Its glass doors would have been thrown open, and its fireplace set aglow, as several hundred people gathered to toast the club’s latest champions, the pairs skaters Alisa Efimova and Misha Mitrofanov, who had won their first national title.But that celebration never happened. It couldn’t, and it wouldn’t, after six of the club’s members died in a plane crash on Jan. 29 in Washington. Twenty-eight passengers involved in skating, including 11 young athletes and four coaches, were among the 67 people killed that day.Jinna Han, 13, and Spencer Lane, 16, two of the organization’s up-and-coming skaters, were traveling home with their mothers from a development camp held after the nationals in Wichita., Kan., when an Army helicopter collided with their passenger jet above the Potomac River. No one survived. Two of the club’s coaches — Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, a married couple who were the 1994 world champions in pairs — were also on the plane.Yet the lounge at the Boston club did not remain empty. In the hours and days after the crash, one by one, or arm in arm, people arrived and filled the space, drawn to the beloved club that has existed for more than a century, and to a community that many consider a second family.Paul George, a longtime club member, hugs former Olympic figure skaters Dr. Tenley Albright and Nancy Kerrigan.Sophie Park for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      US seeks to deport Indian academic over political views and Palestinian wife, lawyers say

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      An Indian academic at Georgetown University, whose lawyers say was arrested as punishment for his wife’s Palestinian heritage and opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza, has filed an emergency court request to prevent deportation.Department of Homeland Security agents on Monday detained Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at the university’s Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, saying that his visa was revoked. Suri’s attorney said that he was arrested on the same spurious legal grounds as Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, according to Politico.Suri was arrested after returning home from a traditional Ramadan meal and detained by masked federal agents, his legal team said. He has since been transported to several immigration detention facilities and is now at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement “staging center” in Louisiana “potentially awaiting deportation”, the ACLU of Virginia said. His attorneys are requesting his immediate return to Virginia and release while his immigration case is being considered.Detainees may only be held at this particular facility for 72 hours, his lawyers contend. “The facility also does not permit access to visitors or even legal counsel,” court papers in support of the emergency petition say.“Ripping someone from their home and family, stripping them of their immigration status, and detaining them solely based on political viewpoint is a clear attempt by President Trump to silence dissent,” Sophia Gregg, a senior immigrants’ rights attorney at the ACLU of Virginia, said in a statement. “That is patently unconstitutional.”Suri on Tuesday filed a legal petition for release; in court papers first reported by Politico, his attorney said that he did not have a criminal record, nor had he been charged with any crime.The Department of Homeland Security alleged that Suri had ties to the Palestinian militant group Hamas and claimed he shared its propaganda and antisemitic content on social media, officials said in a statement to Fox News. This statement, which did not include any evidence, said that the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, found that his activities “rendered him deportable”.One of Suri’s attorneys, Hassan Ahmad, said he had not been able to reach him since the arrest outside his Arlington, Virginia, home. “We’re trying to speak with him. That hasn’t happened yet,” Ahmad told Politico. “This is just another example of our government abducting people the same way they abducted Khalil.”Suri, who was teaching a course this spring on “majoritarianism and minority rights in south Asia”, holds a doctorate in peace and conflict studies from a university in India, according to Reuters. His wife, Mapheze Saleh, a US citizen, is the daughter of Ahmed Yousef, a former political adviser to Hamas.For at least one month before Suri’s arrest, various hardline pro-Israel social media accounts, as well as Israel’s US embassy, highlighted his wife and father-in-law in posts on X. One 13 March missive, which showed a photo purporting to be Saleh and another photo of her and her father, tagged the US attorney general, Pam Bondi. Court papers say that such groups publicized the home address of the couple, who have three children.“Dr Suri’s experience is shocking and disgraceful,” Ahmad said in a a statement. “It should worry everyone that masked government agents can disappear someone from their home and family because the current administration dislikes their opinion.”According to a 2018 article about Suri and Saleh in the Hindustan Times, Saleh is the daughter of Ahmed Yousef, a former political adviser to Hamas.Suri’s arrest came amid Donald Trump’s efforts to expel foreign nationals who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza following the October 2023 Hamas attack. Civil liberties groups have decried Trump’s actions as assaults on free speech and illegal targeting of political opponents.View image in fullscreenKhalil, a Palestinian Columbia graduate and green card holder, faces deportation under a provision of immigration law that permits the US secretary of state to expel non-citizens if their presence in the country is deemed a threat to foreign policy. A Manhattan federal court judge ordered that Khalil remain in the US while his immigration case is pending and has transferred the proceedings to New Jersey.Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed in a social media post that Rubio deemed Suri’s presence a threat to US foreign policy interests.“Suri was a foreign exchange student at Georgetown University actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media. Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas,” McLaughlin said in a post on X. “The Secretary of State issued a determination on March 15, 2025 that Suri’s activities and presence in the United States rendered him deportable under INA section 237(a)(4)(C)(i).”A spokesperson for Georgetown said the university did not know of any alleged wrongdoing on Suri’s part and that it supported students’ and professors’ right to free expression. “Dr Khan Suri is an Indian national who was duly granted a visa to enter the United States to continue his doctoral research on peacebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan. We are not aware of him engaging in any illegal activity, and we have not received a reason for his detention,” the university said. “We support our community members’ rights to free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate, even if the underlying ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable. We expect the legal system to adjudicate this case fairly.”Trump has repeatedly characterized pro-Palestinian protesters as antisemitic. Those advocating for Palestine, among them some Jewish groups, contend that their criticism of Israel’s military efforts in Gaza and support for Palestinian rights has wrongly been cast as antisemitism by critics.Reuters contributed reporting More

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      Washington worried with Trump back in town: ‘The atmosphere is toxic here’

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      It was an audience more accustomed to stifling a cough or resisting the temptation to unwrap a sweet. But when they spotted vice-president JD Vance taking his seat at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington on Thursday night, classical music-goers erupted in unrestrained boos, jeers and shouts of “You ruined this place!”The noisy protest exemplified a culture clash taking place in the nation’s capital. It came in the same week that work began to remove a giant “Black Lives Matter” mural near the White House, a top political columnist quit the Washington Post newspaper and a spending bill passed by the House of Representatives sought to impose drastic budget cuts of $1.1bn on the District of Columbia (DC).Compounding it all, with Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) slashing the federal workforce, some residents fear that Washington could go the way of Detroit half a century ago: a city that loses its principal industry and goes into a downward spiral.“Everybody feels the atmosphere is toxic here and you can’t get away from it,” said Sally Quinn, an author, journalist and socialite. “People are so distraught and so down and in despair. The question is, what can we do? That’s what people are asking in Washington. The biggest feeling of all is impotence: they can’t stop it.”Trump has always been an anachronistic presence in DC, where the Republican lost last year’s presidential election to Democratic opponent Kamala Harris by 86 percentage points. During his first term, he only ventured out to one restaurant in the city – his own – and never attended the annual Kennedy Center Honors or White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.But as in other arenas, Trump’s second term is more direct, determined and intentional, and includes the cultural equivalent of precision air strikes against the mostly liberal residents of Washington.View image in fullscreenOn Monday crews started work to remove a giant yellow “Black Lives Matter” slogan painted on a street one block from the White House. DC mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, had ordered the painting and renamed the intersection Black Lives Matter Plaza in June 2020 following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.Its erasure five years later amounts to a public acknowledgement of how vulnerable DC is now that Trump is back in the White House and Republicans control both houses of Congress. The work is expected to take about six weeks and the words will be replaced by an unspecified set of city-sponsored murals.Among those who gathered to witness the work on Monday was Megan Bailiff, chief executive of Equus Striping, the pavement marking company that originally painted the letters. She told the Associated Press its presence was “more significant at this very moment than it ever has been in this country” and described its its removal as “historically obscene”.Trump has seized control of the Kennedy Center, the crown jewel of the city’s performing arts scene, installing himself as chair and loyalist Ric Grenell as president. Numerous artists and producers have cancelled shows, including Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit musical Hamilton, while ticket sales reportedly dropped roughly 50% week-over-week after Trump announced his takeover.The backlash against Vance at this week’s National Symphony Orchestra concert was a palpable demonstration of the anger. Coming just weeks after the vice-president publicly berated Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, some could not help but note the irony that he was attending all-Russian programme that included Stravinsky’s Petrushka, the story of three puppets brought to life by a charlatan.The booing incident prompted a retort from Grenell, who wrote on the X social media platform: “It troubles me to see that so many in the audience appear to be white and intolerant of diverse political views. Diversity is our strength.” Meanwhile this week Trump added Fox News host Laura Ingraham and Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo to the Kennedy Center’s board.Quinn observed: “They’re being very imaginative in their atrocities. They trashed the Kennedy Center and threw everybody out and put Laura Ingraham on the board. The Kennedy Center has been so much a part of the city for so long and suddenly it’s gone. They’ve lost in the first couple of weeks 50% of their ticket sales. They’re not getting the donations they used to get. All kinds of acts are cancelling and people I know say they won’t ever set foot in that place.”View image in fullscreenThe Trump International hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue is no more but the Maga (Make America great again) movement is gaining a foothold in other parts of the city. Butterworth’s, a bistro on Capitol Hill, has drawn Trump allies including Musk and Kash Patel and has been dubbed “Steve Bannon’s restaurant”.Bannon, who lives nearby but has no formal connection to Butterworth’s, said in a text message it reminds him of one of his favourite areas in London. “It’s Mayfair come to Capitol Hill,” he explained.Co-owner Raheem Kassam, a former editor-in-chief of Breitbart News UK and ex-aide to British rightwing populist Nigel Farage, insisted in an online message: “We are a Capitol Hill restaurant that welcomes everyone and refuses to discriminate based on politics. Our investors come from a range of backgrounds, and includes left-liberals, apolitical-types, LGBT+ people, and minorities.“But frankly, we’re not really interested in ticking boxes. We’re interested in great food and good vibes. If you fancy that, we’re the place for you, no matter who you are. Just please, no hats for dinner service.”Washington has often had a tenuous peace with the federal government when Republicans controlled Congress and the White House. It is now facing its most urgent threat since it was given the power of home rule during the Richard Nixon administration.This week the House passed a continuing resolution to fund the federal government that includes a provision treating DC as a federal agency for budget purposes. This would force DC to revert to its fiscal year 2024 spending levels, resulting in an estimated $1.1bn cut to its current 2025 budget over the remaining six months.The funds are locally raised taxpayer dollars, not federal subsidies. City officials warned of “calamitous reduction in services ranging from schools to public safety”. Washington could face potential hiring freezes, layoffs across various agencies, renegotiation or termination of leases and decreased security and janitorial services.Paul Strauss, shadow US senator for DC, said: “I’m shocked that it’s now House Republicans that are taking steps to defund the police, which was normally a position staked out by extreme members of the far left. To have the House vote to cut the police budget so substantially seems difficult to understand.”After final passage of the continuing resolution, the Senate unanimously passed a bill by voice vote to restore the $1.1bn in spending cuts to the DC government. The DC bill, which Trump supports, must still be approved by the House when it returns on 24 March.Democrats and DC officials view the proposed budget cuts as politically motivated, potentially aimed at undermining the self-governance of the predominantly Democratic city. Trump has previously suggested that DC would be better off under total federal control.View image in fullscreenSuch is the concern that Jamie Raskin, a Democratic congressman from Maryland, even floated the idea that Washington could be temporarily incorporated into Maryland. Raskin said on the City Cast DC podcast: “If you guys want to think about coming back to Maryland for this period, you would definitely be safer in the free state than you’d be under the brutal thumb of Maga colonialism.”Simultaneously, Washington is facing economic headwinds due to deep federal job cuts orchestrated by Doge under the Trump administration. Unemployment claims recently rose 25% in one week and are four times as high as one year earlier. Glen Lee, the district’s chief financial officer, has forecast that DC could lose 40,000 federal jobs – down by a fifth – and projected a loss of revenue of $1bn over the next three years.Bill Galston, a chair in governance studies at the Brookings Institution thinktank, noted that the federal government is a vast establishment with 2.3 million workers spread across the country, of whom 80% are not in Washington. “So I don’t think that life in Washington DC has been upended yet,” he said.“What there has been and of course is is a pell-mell replacement of a sense of security with a pretty near total sense of insecurity. The sense of what might happen to an individual is a larger effect than the actual firings. People are hunkering down.”The shift in Trump’s second term has been more dramatic than anyone expected, added Galston, a resident of 43 years. “There’s an element of incredulity. People who tried to imagine in the starkest possible detail what could happen almost universally concede that, while they have let their imaginations run riot, they feel they didn’t go far enough.“There is something slightly surreal about all of this, but I wake up in the morning and I walk down the driveway in a very old fashioned way for my three newspapers and I open up the package and it’s very real.”As Doge downsizes the government, the Trump administration has considered offloading numerous federal properties, raising concerns about vacant buildings and a decline similar to that of Detroit after the car manufacturing industry was gutted. An essay in the New York Times newspaper this week was headlined: “DC Is Becoming Another Hollowed-Out Company Town.”View image in fullscreenQuinn said: “It is a one industry town, and basically what they’re doing is destroying the government, which is what Trump said he would do. Even Trump supporters are stunned. I know from some of my friends on the Hill that Republican senators and congressmen are freaking out, too, because they’re hearing from their constituents.”Quinn was married to the late Ben Bradlee, who was editor of the Washington Post when it reported on the Watergate scandal, which forced Nixon’s resignation. Long a vital part of the fabric of the city, the storied newspaper has been in freefall, financially and editorially, over the past year.Billionaire owner Jeff Bezos, who donated to and attended Trump’s inauguration, recently ordered that the paper narrow the topics covered by its opinion section to personal liberties and the free market. Opinions editor David Shipley resigned because of the shift. This week Ruth Marcus, who had worked at the Post since 1984, also quit. Several star reporters have left in recent months.David Maraniss, a former associate editor of the Post who recently resigned after 48 years at the paper, said: “What’s happening at the Post is connected to Trump and that’s very disturbing to me. I don’t think Bezos genuflecting to an autocrat is something I want to have any part of. I consider the Post a public trust almost. That sounds sort of idealistic and naive but it’s larger than an owner; it’s an identity.“What it represents in terms of journalistic ethics and integrity has been damaged almost beyond repair and this is a time when newspapers of that sort are needed more than ever. For us to recede from that push for freedom of speech, the First Amendment, for the search for truth is depressing to me.”For many of Trump’s critics, Washington feels like a city under occupation. Maraniss added: “It’s the second occupation but it seems more pronounced than the first. My feelings are complicated by a double whammy of what’s happening in my newspaper and in the city, in the country and in the world. It all seems wrapped together. In terms of Washington there’s anxiety, a feeling of a darkness coming over the city and enormous uncertainty about what people should do.” More

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      in Elections

      At Gridiron Dinner, Jokes About Trump, Musk and Russia Abound

      by

      But President Trump wasn’t around to hear any of the barbs thrown at the annual D.C. event.The annual Gridiron Club dinner in Washington on Saturday featured jokes about President Trump, the breakdown of the global order, Russia, Democrats’ uncertain future and, of course, Elon Musk.One of the headliners was Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland, a rising star in the Democratic Party. He acknowledged that his speaking slot was a sign of his own political ambitions, while making a jab at the White House’s current occupant.“If I actually wanted to be president, I wouldn’t do any of this,” he said. “Instead, I would take my case directly to the people who are in charge of our democracy. The Kremlin.”Even after all these years, jokes about Mr. Trump and Russia still play with the official Washington crowd. Those in the Hyatt basement, which was packed with reporters, editors, television anchors and ambassadors, laughed along.But Mr. Trump wasn’t there to hear any of it.He and top members of his administration skipped the dinner, which is one of those old-fashioned Washington rituals. Presidents dating back to William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt have attended the event hosted by the Gridiron Club, an association of top journalists that was formed in 1885. It has historically been a chance for a president to schmooze with the people who cover him, as well as to crack jokes about the political fight of the day.Mr. Trump skipped the dinner in 2017, the first year he was president, but he did attend in 2018. That year, he made some self-deprecating jokes about the turmoil of his administration. (“I like chaos. It really is good. Who’s going to be the next to leave? Steve Miller, or Melania?”) That was the first and last time he attended.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More