Best of the Daily Blast: MAGA Rage at “No Kings” Boils Over—and It Quickly Backfires on Trump

The DSR Network

Chris Cotnoir

Government

4.5 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 2025

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Original air date: October 14, 2025 President Trump’s allies are suddenly raging over the October 18th “No Kings” protests. MAGA Mike Johnson and ⁠MAGA-fied⁠ Representative Steve Scalise are ⁠angrily sliming expected attendees⁠ as ⁠America-haters⁠, antifa, Marxists, and terrorists. Other GOP figures have ⁠done the same⁠, with ⁠one hinting⁠ that the National Guard should crack down on them. This unanimity of messaging about terrorists means it’s all almost certainly being coordinated by Stephen Miller. Yet it’s backfiring: Democrats and rally organizers are ⁠using it to galvanize attendance⁠, which will likely succeed. Robert De Niro ⁠amplified⁠ the call to turn out, inspiring ⁠more anger⁠ on Fox News. Indeed, the GOP demonization of legitimate protests itself ratifies the “No Kings” message. We talked to Jill Lawrence, who ⁠writes well for The Bulwark⁠ on Trump’s hatred of blue America. We discuss why large legitimate protests infuriate Trump-MAGA, why the correct response to their smears is to turn out in force, and why that’s likely to happen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's the holiday season, which means it's time for celebration and reflection on the passing of another year.
0:08.7	To celebrate here at the DSR Network, we're bringing you some of our absolute best episodes from the past year as we celebrate the end of 2025.
0:18.6	We hope you enjoy.
0:36.4	This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.
0:38.7	I'm your host, Greg Sargent. It has become very clear that President Donald Trump is really, really worried about the
0:51.9	No King's protests that are scheduled for October 18th.
0:56.2	Suddenly, multiple Republicans are all using the same disgusting talking point about the protests,
1:02.5	referring to them as agitators and terrorists.
1:05.3	It sure looks coordinated.
1:07.4	They're all using the same vile language.
1:10.5	This really displays extraordinary contempt for our whole
1:14.0	political system. Yet we think it'll backfire. It'll only prompt the protests to get larger. And there's
1:21.3	nothing Trump hates more than seeing big crowds arrayed against him. Today we're talking about all
1:27.4	this with writer Jill Lawrence,
1:28.8	who has a new piece for the bulwark on Trump's hatred of our system and of Democratic voters.
1:34.0	Jill, thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me, Greg. So the No King's protests are set for next
1:40.5	Saturday. Let's listen to what House Speaker Mike Johnson had to say about this.
1:46.0	This hate America rally that they have coming up for October 18th, the Antifa crowd and the pro
1:51.5	Hamas crowd and the Marxists, they're all going to gather on them all. We've got some House Democrats
1:55.9	selling T-shirts for this event. It is an, it is an outrageous gathering for outrageous purposes.
2:03.3	So there you heard Johnson talk about Antifa, pro Hamas, Marxists, Jill, these are American
2:09.0	citizens, millions of them, exercising their right to peacefully protest. Your response to what
	...

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