People in more than 1,300 cities across the country rallied on Saturday for Hands Off! protests against the sudden, brutal actions of the Trump administration. In Iowa, there were rallies in 17 cities, stretching from Red Oak to Davenport. In Cerro Gordo County, which Trump carried by 12 percentage points in November, more than 250 people rallied at the City Hall parking lot in Mason City. Almost 10 times that number gathered in Iowa City for its march and rally.
President Trump didn’t comment on the nationwide rallies on Saturday. Even though extra security fencing had been installed around the White House, Trump was not in Washington D.C., where tens of thousand attended the Hands Off! rally. He was at his country club/home in Florida, playing golf, attending a golf tournament by the Saudi-financed LIV Golf and hosting a $1 million per person fundraiser for the MAGA Inc. Super PAC. The president’s compulsive social media posting over the weekend focused on attempts to reassure people, or bully them into believing, that the massive tariffs he announced last week were a smart economic move, while the financial markets cratered and consumer prices rose in response to his arbitrary tariffs.
“He’s crashing the economy on purpose, he’s destroying the institutions of government on purpose, so that the already insanely wealthy can get even wealthier at our expense,” State Sen. Janice Weiner told the protesters at the rally in Iowa City on Saturday.
The downtown block between Clinton and Dubuque Streets on Iowa Avenue was cordoned off for the rally, and the crowd filled almost all that allotted space. Protesters held signs ranging from the serious to the satirical (“They’re eating the checks! They’re eating the balances!”) A preschooler sitting on her father’s shoulder held up her sign, a piece of cardboard on which she’d written “Bad Vote.”
Weiner, who represents Iowa City in the Senate and was elected Minority Leader by her fellow Senate Democrats in November, encouraged people to call members of Iowa’s delegation on a daily basis to tell them to stand up to Trump’s policies, adding, “With Chuck Grassley, you have to write an email doc, because his voicemail is constantly full.”
“Tell them to stop the real steal. Tell them to stand up to the bully.”
Mandi Remington, director of Corridor Community Action Network and a Johnson County Supervisor, warned in her speech that Trump and his allies are “coming for our identities, our communities, and our very right to exist safely and freely in this country. They know that diversity, equity and inclusion make us stronger, that’s why they’re trying to dismantle it state by state, institution by institution, and lie by lie.”
Remington referenced her own work on DEI issues at the University of Iowa, and explained, “When diversity, equity and inclusion are attacked it is never in isolation. It is part of a larger agenda to erase truth, silence the vulnerable and consolidate power.”
“These are not just culture wars. They are real policy decisions with real consequences — for Black and brown kids trying to see themselves in books, trans kids navigating life without basic protection, disabled students and workers losing support, and women and queer folks losing rights we fought generations to secure.”
Remington finished by reminding the protesters, “Our strength lies in our unity, in our ability to protect each other and to fight back together. Every march, every rally, every act of resistance, every act of mutual aid brings us closer to a world where ‘liberty and justice for all’ aren’t just an idea, but a reality.”
Two speakers represented unionized federal workers, who are under threat by the policies of the Trump administration.
Ben Kayser, a longtime USPS worker and a member of the National Association of Letter Carriers, talked about the inchoate plans the administration has for the Post Office. Possibilities include ending the independence of USPS by making it part of the Commerce Department, privatizing most its services and selling off its assets. Kayser pointed out that attempts to privatize mail delivery in other countries has failed, in large part because it isn’t profitable for private companies to provide services to rural communities.
“We’re not here to make money,” Kayer said about the USPS. “We’re here to serve the American people.”
Pat Kearns, a registered nurse at the VA Hospital in Iowa City for 30 years and a member of the American Federation of Government Employees, talked about how the VA, Medicaid and Medicare are focused on serving Americans in ways private healthcare providers aren’t.
“Private health insurance cannot compare to the efficiency of Medicare and Medicaid,” he told the crowd. “Medicare and Medicaid’s job is to deliver care and pay for it. Private insurance’s job is to make profits.”
Kearns also explained how the private health industry relies on technology developed at the VA.
“We invented the integrated electronic health record,” Kearns said. “We invented all the things you see at the hospital where they scan your wristband and then scan the medication. That was invented at the VA.”
The VA health service has long been a target of conservative politicians, who push to privatize it despite its hospitals and clinics being more highly rated by patients than private ones. In a survey conducted last year by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, 79 percent of VA hospitals received 4 or 5 stars from patients, while only 40 percent of non-VA hospitals were ranked as high.
A large nonprofit network of hospitals performing at that level is seen as a threat by those who promote for-profit healthcare.
“The VA is the model for single-payer healthcare,” Kearns said.
Other speakers address the Trump administration’s cuts undermining science, protection of the environment and libraries and museums. Ed Cranston, chair of the Johnson County Democrats, addressed the importance of voting, and the need to replace Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Sen. Joni Ernst and Gov. Kim Reynolds, all of whom will be up for reelection in 2026.
“We can replace them with Democrats who will work for us and represent our values,” Cranston said.
Oliver Weilein, the newest member of the Iowa City Council, spoke after Cranston and emphasized a different approach.
“There is so much more to fighting back against the fascist takeover of the country than voting, or even attending protests like this one, as amazing as it is from an organizational standpoint,” he said.
Weilein said he wasn’t discouraging anyone from voting, but said that a grassroots effort to create unions — at work, among tenants, for students — that acted in unison and independently of political parties, was a more effective way to defend people against actions by the state and federal governments.
“We do not have to ask permission from anybody to better our lives, least of all a politician or a party,” he told the protesters.
The Trump administration’s targeting of immigrants and refugees was addressed by the first speaker at the rally, Ninoska Campos of Escucha Mi Voz Iowa.
Speaking through an interpreter, Campos, a refugee from Honduras who has been in Iowa for seven years, talked about the essential work immigrants do in the state.
“The roofs, the roads, they’re made by immigrants,” she said. “And just for not having a document, we’re being persecuted.”
Campos pushed back against the attempts of federal and state officials to create and exploit fears of immigrants: “We’re not here to hurt you, we’re not here to take your jobs, we just want a better life.”
Iowa City Councilmember Mazahir Salih also spoke about the treatment of immigrants and refugees. Salih, who serves on the Iowa City Council and as director of the nonproft Immigrant Welcome Network of Johnson County, made history in 2017 as the first Sudanese-American elected to office when she first won her seat on the city council.
“Every day I work alongside families of immigrants and refugees who are trying to rebuild their lives with dignity,” she said, before telling listeners that today she was also speaking “as a sister.”
“My own sister fled the war in Sudan, and she made it to Egypt with her four children, hoping for peace and safety,” Salih said. Her sister and her children hacw spent three years in Egypt, and during that time local authorities have not allowed the children of refugees to attend school. They have “no stability and no real future” in Egypt, Salih said.
“Finally, after all that waiting she was approved by the U.S. government to resettle in the United States. She packed her bags, her kids were excited, dreaming about going back to school, having a home, feeling safe.”
“They were supposed to arrive on Feb. 16,” Salih continued. “But because of Trump’s executive order to pause refugee admissions, they never came. Just like that, the door was shut, the promise was broken and a family already torn by the war was left in limbo again. “
“This is what Trump and his billionaire allies are doing. They are not just making policies, they are destroying lives.”
“Let me be clear, this is a fight for the soul of our country,” Salih said. “Trump and Elon Musk think this country belongs to them. But it does not, it belongs to all of us.”
Near the end of the rally, Aime Wichtendahl, who represents Hiawatha, Robins and northeast Cedar Rapids in Iowa House, took the stage.
“I’m the first openly transgender woman elected to government and the state legislature. And for those of you who don’t know me, my pronouns are she/her and my adjectives are freaking and awesome,” Wichtendahl said to applause and cheers.
Wichtendahl’s powerful and personal speech on the floor of the Iowa House in opposition to the bill that strips away civil rights protections for transgender people received national attention. On Saturday, she highlighted the shared agendas of President Trump and Gov. Reynolds.
“I’m here today to say ‘hands off our civil rights,’” Wichtendahl said. “Because the ruling Trump and Reynolds regime talks about freedom, but when they are in power, they only take freedom away. They removed gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights Act, and they are trying to actively eradicate transgender people. They have deprived Iowans of their bodily autonomy, they have banned abortion and they are revoking reproductive freedom.”
“They have deported students for exercising their First Amendment rights. They’ve denied immigrants due process and deported them to an El Salvadorian gulag. They have banned books, rewritten history and erased the achievements of communities of color. They’ve revoked the ability to collectively bargain, weakened child labor laws and gleefully celebrated the firing of federal workers. They’ve taken food from the hungry, taken healthcare from the sick, and broken apart families and have the gall to call themselves ‘godly.’”
Wichtendahl told people not to allow themselves to become distracted or divided.
“Never say this isn’t my fight,” she said. “Stand with immigrant communities, stand with communities of color, stand with the queer community, stand for the rights and dignity and humanity of your neighbor. Because the thing that fascists fear is a united people.”
Wichtendahl led the crowd in a chant of “No kings! No fascists! No fucking billionaires!”
She concluded by saying, “Stand fast, stand tall and stand together, because we have a future left to win.”
