Thousands demonstrating in Lansing, Detroit and other cities among US protests opposing Trump agenda

Attorney General Dana Nessel warned thousands of protesters gathered on the lawn of the Michigan Capitol Saturday that President Donald Trump could pose the type of domestic threat warned about in the oath of office administered to elected officials and service members in the United States, predicting that he would order military action against dissidents.

Nessel was speaking during a “Hands Off!” protest organized by the 50501 Movement and various statewide groups, including civil rights organizations, labor unions, LGBTQ+ advocates, veterans, and fair-elections activists. ​It was one of 55 rallies planned to take place in Michigan at the same time as more than 1,000 protests nationwide. Rallies in Michigan were also organized in cities including Detroit, Grand Rapids, Traverse City and Marquette.

Nessel offered a stark warning to the protesters, predicting that Trump would order the U.S. military to target citizens who speak out against the administration.

“We will not capitulate. We will not act as appeasers. We will not bow down,” Nessel said. “And when Trump invariably invokes the Insurrection Act and commands the National Guard and the military to train their weapons upon us, we will let them know that when they took an oath to defend the United States against enemies, both foreign and domestic, that means Donald Trump and his accomplices, not all of us.”

The Democratic attorney general said that the United States is already “in the midst of a constitutional crisis” as Trump “has been thumbing his nose at the courts, disparaging judges and their rulings and completely violating court orders.”

“Trump and his lawless, corrupt and chaotic administration can ignore court orders, but they cannot ignore all of us,” Nessel said. “This is our state, our country, our democracy, and we will not relinquish it to a wannabe dictator, tyrant king.”

Nessel said she began suing the Trump administration on his second day back in office, and vowed to continue suing him “each and every damn time he violates the law and injures our state.”

“Donald Trump seems to believe that he has a mandate to cripple our nation, violate the law and throw out the Constitution, because he won this state by 80,000 votes,” Nessel said. “I want to say that I won this state by 370,000 votes, and unlike Donald Trump, when I swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, I actually read it, and I definitely meant it.”

Deputy Secretary of State Aghogho Edevbie, who is running for secretary of state as a Democrat, pointed to Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election as an example of the threat he poses, noting that Trump has been talking about seeking a third term—which he has no constitutional power to do.

“There is nothing that will stop Donald Trump from trying to destroy this country for his own personal gain, and he’s at it again,” Edevbie said.

“We’re going to either stand up and fight, or we’re going to let Trump become a dictator and a king.”

Edevbie noted that Michigan voters have approved numerous changes to the state’s election laws in recent elections, with ballot proposals passing by wide margins of support.

“When we rise above the lies, when we rise above the bulls—t, when we rise above misinformation, we win,” Edevbie said.

The rallies taking place throughout the country Saturday were meant to oppose Trump and Elon Musk’s sweeping changes to the federal government, which include “everything they can get their hands on,” according to a statement from organizers.

Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, who announced a campaign for governor last month, said that while there are areas where government can be more efficient, the Trump administration does not have the mindset to propose real solutions.

“I’m tired of people who claim they serve but only serve themselves,” Gilchrist said. “I’m tired of an administration that wakes up and, before they eat breakfast, they figure out who they can fire, they figure out whose healthcare they can strip, they figure out what veteran can’t get their benefits, and they figure out who doesn’t get their Social Security.”

Former U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow said that the Trump administration is “embracing an agenda of revenge, racism, power and greed.”

Gilchrist estimated that there were more than 7,000 people in attendance at the rally, making it one of the largest since Trump took office in January.

Former Wayne County Health Director Abdul El-Sayed, who resigned from his position earlier this week to explore a possible campaign for Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat, called back to his standard stump speech when he was a candidate in the Democratic primary for governor in 2018.

“I ran on this idea that Donald Trump wasn’t himself the disease, he was the worst symptom of the disease. And unless we were willing to take on the symptom and the disease, that that symptom would come back,” El-Sayed said. “And I hate to say it, we did do something about the symptom, but guess what? Disease came roaring back. And that’s what we’re living through right now.”

El-Sayed said his parents immigrated to the U.S. from Egypt, adding, “I love immigrants. But there’s just this one that I got some issues with,” referring to Musk.

“That boy came over here, he took billions of dollars of our government money to support companies that he didn’t even start, and now he wants to kill government for the rest of us,” El-Sayed said.

“You know how many times I’ve been told to go back to my country? I was born and raised here. Elon can go on and go back to his country.”

Detroit marchers; ‘This is what democracy looks like’

Meanwhile, more than 2,000 people gathered in Midtown Detroit on Saturday for a protest organized by the Hands Off! Detroit Fights Back coalition. The marchers chanted “Show me what democracy looks like. This is what democracy looks like” as they started at the Detroit Institute of Arts and ended near Little Caesars Arena, walking a three-mile route through the city.

The group criticized President Donald Trump, as well as billionaire and head of the Department of Government Efficiency Elon Musk, accusing them of harming public services, workers’ rights, and data privacy.

“Donald Trump and Elon Musk think this country belongs to them. Detroit is fighting back!” the coalition said in a press release. “They’re taking everything they can get their hands on… and daring the world to stop them.”

Organizers said the protest was part of a larger movement to resist policies they see as a threat to democracy and working-class communities.