MAGA Rage at “No Kings” Boils Over—and It Quickly Backfires on Trump

THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

The New Republic

News, Politics

4.4 • 800 Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2025

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, this is Ava from Vanta.
0:02.0	In today's digital world, compliance regulations are changing constantly,
0:07.0	and earning customer trust has never mattered more.
0:10.0	Vanta helps companies get compliant fast and stay secure,
0:13.0	with the most advanced AI automation and continuous monitoring out there.
0:17.0	So whether you're a startup going for your first stock two or ISO-27,001,
0:21.5	or a growing enterprise managing vendor risk, Banta makes it quick, easy and scalable,
0:26.4	and I'm not to saying that because I work here. Get started today at banta.com.
0:46.4	This This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.
0:48.7	I'm your host, Greg Sargent. It has become very clear that President Donald Trump is really, really worried about the no-kings protests that are scheduled for October 18th.
1:06.3	Suddenly, multiple Republicans are all using the same disgusting talking point about the protests,
1:12.5	referring to them as agitators and terrorists. It sure looks coordinated. They're all using
1:18.2	the same vile language. This really displays extraordinary contempt for our whole political system.
1:25.7	Yet we think it'll backfire.
1:30.2	It'll only prompt the protests to get larger.
1:35.3	And there's nothing Trump hates more than seeing big crowds arrayed against him.
1:39.9	Today we're talking about all this with writer Jill Lawrence, who has a new piece for the bulwark on Trump's hatred of our system and of Democratic voters.
1:44.0	Jill, thanks for coming on.
1:46.0	Thanks for having me, Greg. So the No King's protests are set for next Saturday. Let's listen to what
1:52.1	House Speaker Mike Johnson had to say about this. This hate America rally that they have coming up
1:58.1	for October 18th, the Antifa crowd and the pro-Hamas
2:01.7	crowd and the Marxists, they're all going to gather on them all. We've got some House Democrats
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The New Republic, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The New Republic and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.