Hi there and welcome to meet the press now. I'm Ryan Nobles in Washington, where there appears to be no end in sight for what is now the third longest government shutdown in American history.

And as more Americans are beginning to feel the impact of the prolonged shutdown

with air traffic controllers, staffing issues leading to airport delays,

as they and many other federal employees are still working without pay.

This weekend, millions of demonstrators took part in no-k's rallies across all 50 states to protest the Trump administration.

Organizers say nearly 7 million people turned out across more than 2,500 rallies on Saturday.

The day remained overwhelmingly peaceful with only 15 arrests related to the protests reported nationwide.

But the rallies appearing to get under the president's skin as he dismissed the demonstrators as a joke.

I think it's a joke. I looked at the people. They're not representative of this country.

And I looked at all the brand new signs paid for, I guess it was made for by Soros and other

radical left lunatics. It looks like it was. We're checking it out. The demonstrations were very

small, very ineffective, and the people were whacked out. When you look at those people,

those are not representative of the people of our country. Now, despite that, the president

spent part of his weekend responding to the rallies on social media, posting among other things,

an AI-generated video of himself, wearing a crown, flying a fighter jet, dumping what appears

to be raw sewage on protesters, which NBC News is choosing not to show.

On Capitol Hill today, Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, echoed the president's claim that,

quote, radical anti-American groups were behind the protests.

Chuck Schumer himself joined the spectacle in New York City.

And it's interesting to note his activities there.

He was standing side by side, some of the most radical groups that maybe ever assembled on

U.S. soil. They openly advertised as co-sponsors of the event in New York City, the Communist

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