Thousands in Tucson join national 'Hands Off!' demonstrations

Waves of Tucsonans rallied against President Trump and his policies Saturday at Reid Park as part of a nationwide day of action.

The protest here hosted by Mobilize Tucson drew thousands of people who lined East 22nd Street, the southern edge of the midtown park, to “unite against these attacks on our constitution,” said Bennett Burke, of Mobilize Tucson. The call for support was heeded not just by adults, but by many preteens who felt they too were being treaded on by the current administration.

“He’s weird, and I just don’t really like him at all,” said 9-year-old Einine Howard. Her sign, not appropriate for print, left no question about her feelings for the sitting president. Trump, she and her friend said, is the worst person they know.

Howard’s grandmother, Cynthia Carlisi, said she was proud her granddaughter and her best friend are standing up for what they believe and are engaging in activism at such a young age. It will, after all, be their country soon.

“We are tearing apart the country with Trump’s programs and it has to stop,” Carlisi said, saying the Trump administration needs to keep its hands off social network programs like education, social security, Medicaid, Medicare and a mountain of other desperate needs of the American people.

“To get young people involved in the movement for a better way in the world is a main goal of our resistance.”

Also there to resist and advocate were two 11-year-old Tucson girls who rallied with their mothers on an electric-filled afternoon of chants and signs and hopes for change.

The preteens, whose mothers asked not be named, were raising awareness of transgender rights that they said are being infringed upon by Trump and his administration.

“What’s happening in the government right now is affecting everyone, even us,” one girl said. “It’s important to stand up for what we believe and be the person we want.”

Looking out at sea of supporters in the park — all showing support for a variety of issues — helped them feel less alone, they said.

“It feels very hopeful,” said a mom who asked not to be named to protect her daughter. “As a parent, things feel very dire right now and I’m really worried what the future will look like for them. We need the community to take care of each other.”

The chance to be a part of that community would not be missed by Cathy Harris-Cannon, who was visiting her daughter in Tucson from her home in North Carolina.

“Wherever I was going to be on this day, I was going to show up,” Harris-Cannon said. “(Trump) is ruining our country and the people who support him need to wake up . . I can’t think of anything he’s done right.”

Holding a sign simply stating, “Ugh. Where do I even start?,” Harris-Cannon could list 100 ways that were too long to list that she sees the current administration failing.

But, Saturday helped the dismayed feel hopeful, she said as horns blared in the background, so loud that it sounded like freight trains pulling into the station.

“This is just awesome,” she said. “We have to have (these events) to know we’re not alone.”

Opponents of President Donald Trump and his billionaire advisor Elon Musk rallied across the U.S. to protest several administration actions. There were more than two dozen protests planned across Arizona, including in Phoenix, Flagstaff, Sedona and a number of smaller cities.

Protesters assailed the Trump 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 federal funding for health programs.

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

Thousands gathered outside the Arizona Capitol and across the state, angrily decrying the Trump administration and urging resistance to what they see as an assault on democracy and American values, the Arizona Republic reported.

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes vowed the American people “will not go quietly!”

The crowd held signs citing causes favored by the political left, from women’s rights to preserving Social Security to preserving democracy.

Fontes reflected the simmering outrage at Trump and his agenda that was prominently on display in several spots in Arizona on April 5 and across the nation.

“I don’t just come here as a dad of three daughters who’s pissed off because there’s people in these buildings who don’t want them to be equal citizens in this society,” he said. “I don’t just come here as a future stepdad of a child who has disability watching these idiots dismantle the very services that you all pay for so they can live with dignity.”

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes joined the protest in Sedona, energizing the crowd as she highlighted the ongoing legal battles Democratic attorneys general — including herself — have launched against President Donald Trump, the Republic reported.

“When Donald Trump decided that he wanted to strike out unilaterally birthright citizenship, we sued him and we won,” Mayes said. “When they tried to fire 25,000 probationary federal workers, we sued them and we got them stopped.”

Mayes accused the administration of working to “destroy every single federal agency in this country” and terminate “maybe more than a million federal workers.”

“The fact that you are all here, that we are here together: It means that you are patriots,” Mayes said. “Don’t ever let them take that word away from us.”

Speaking at the Washington protest, Paul Osadebe, a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and a labor union steward, criticized Trump, Musk and others in the administration for not valuing the work federal employees do in creating “a baseline of economic security and power for working people.”

“Billionaires and oligarchs don’t value anything other than profit and power, and they sure as hell don’t value you or your life or your community,” he said. “And we’re seeing that they don’t care who they have to destroy or who they have to hurt to get what they want.”

In Massachusetts, thousands of people gathered on Boston Common holding signs including “Hands off our democracy,” “Hands off our Social Security” and “Diversity equity inclusion makes America strong. Hands off!” In Ohio, hundreds rallied in rainy conditions at the Statehouse in Columbus.

Roger Broom, 66, a retiree from Delaware County, Ohio, said at the Columbus rally that he used to be a Reagan Republican but has been turned off by Trump.

“He’s tearing this country apart,” Broom said. “It’s just an administration of grievances.”

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.

The president plans to go golfing again Sunday, according to the White House.

Asked about the protests, the White House said in a statement that “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.”

Activists have staged nationwide demonstrations against Trump or Musk multiple times since Trump returned to office, including a large weekly protest in Tucson outside of the Tesla dealership.

But the opposition movement has yet to produce a mass mobilization like the Women’s March in 2017, which brought thousands of women to Washington, D.C., after Trump’s first inauguration, or the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that erupted in multiple cities after George Floyd’s killing in 2020.