Thousands of people turned out in cities across the U.S. on Monday to protest President Trump and billionaires on Labor Day.
May Day Strong, a coalition of dozens of labor and advocacy groups, organized more than 1,000 protests and other events in more than 900 cities. The nationwide push, backed by the AFL-CIO, is dubbed “Workers over Billionaires.”
Organizers told The Hill they expected several hundred thousand people to attend the events across the country on Monday.
Protesters took to the streets in large cities such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, while demonstrations extended to numerous other cities and states, from Washington, D.C., to San Diego, and pockets of Florida to Idaho.
The protests are generally focused on what critics view as excessive influence among key American business leaders and corporations during the second Trump administration.
“Labor and community are planning more than a barbecue on Labor Day this year because we have to stop the billionaire takeover. Billionaires are stealing from working families, destroying our democracy, and building private armies to attack our towns and cities,” May Day Strong’s website reads.
Demonstrations in certain cities took on a particular focus.
In Chicago, where Trump has threatened to send in National Guard troops and federal immigration agents amid a push to crack down on crime, thousands of protesters chanted and carried signs opposing any federal law enforcement surge, Reuters reported.
The Washington Post reported that the head of the local AFL-CIO body in San Francisco said that city’s rally focused on tech companies like Palantir, which has secured billions in federal contracts in Trump’s second term in a broad push to embrace artificial intelligence.
When reached for comment, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said “no one has done more for working men and women than President Trump.”
“President Trump believes that American workers are the heart and soul of our economy, which is why he’s championed an agenda that always puts them first — from signing the largest middle-class tax cuts in history to securing nearly $10 trillion in new investments to create high-paying jobs across our country,” Rogers added.
