Protesters gathered in Washington DC on Tuesday night to protest against Donald Trump’s national address, where he claimed a huge amount of crime in the country derives from undocumented migrants coming through the southern border with Mexico. Trump had touted the idea of declaring a national crisis to bypass congress, but ultimately his speech included no such proposal.
Demonstrators chanted “drown out Trump,” played music and sang. They impelled people to “do anything” but listen to the president’s address. Organiser of the protest, Kristin Mink, read out stories of furloughed workers from social media.
“Really do anything other than watch any of the networks that are choosing to broadcast Trump’s dangerous racist fear-mongering lies tonight,” Mink said.
Trump’s speech came in the wake of a partial government shutdown that has been in effect for 17 days, after lawmakers failed to break a budget impasse over Trump’s planned border wall.