‘No Kings Rally' organizer hoping for thousands on Saturday
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Metro leaders are preparing for protests Saturday.
Republican Governor Mike Kehoe's also activated the Missouri National Guard ahead of the 'No Kings Rallies' across Missouri. Authorities are making plans now to try to make sure they stay peaceful.
'To send out troops against American citizens is kind of ridiculous, really,' Indivisible Kansas City Founder Beverly Harvey said on Friday, talking about Governor Kehoe's activation.
State House Minority Leader Ashley Aune told FOX4 Friday that just because the Missouri National Guard's been activated does not necessarily mean there will be a presence at the protests.
Kansas attorney general blocked from denying gender changes on driver's licenses
Republican Missouri Congressman Mark Alford says the National Guard is there to protect police officers and citizens should they need it. Congressman Alford added that he thought Governor Kehoe's decision was very wise.
'I'm praying for peaceful protests,' he said.
'There's going to be one in Lee's Summit. There's going to be one there near the Plaza at Mill Creek Park. You have every right to disagree with Donald J. Trump and his policies, but let's do it peacefully.'
House Minority Leader Aune says she always wants Governor Kehoe to feel like he can activate Missouri's National Guard if need be.
'That said, there has been no indication that I'm aware of that any of the protests planned in our state are going to be violent in any way,' she said.
The rallies are timed to coincide with Saturday's military parade in Washington D.C. The local rally has gained extra attention amid the White House's crackdown on illegal immigration.
Marines are seen standing guard at a federal building in Los Angeles
FOX4 asked Harvey if she thought things would get out of hand on Saturday.
'I know that our group won't get out of hand,' she replied.
'Indivisible prides itself nationally and all the groups, there's like 2,000 groups that will be around the United States tomorrow, on peaceful demonstrations, protests, whatever you want to call it, so we pride ourselves on that. We can't guarantee there won't be instigators. It wouldn't surprise me if there's instigators that show up to try to cause trouble.'
The Kansas City, MO Police Department (KCPD) tells FOX4 they expect a peaceful gathering, adding that they have response plans in place should any issues arise.
FOX4 does not know if KCPD will have more officers on patrol Saturday due to the protest at Mill Creek Park. It starts at noon and is scheduled to go until 3 p.m.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Bill Essayli is out for revenge
Bill Essayli, the recently appointed 39-year-old U.S. attorney for California's central district, spent years in Sacramento angrily chafing at one-party rule — elected but impotent. Now he's ready to show the state's Democrats how it feels to be powerless. He has already charged David Huerta, one of California's most powerful union leaders, with felony conspiracy for allegedly impeding an ICE arrest by participating in a protest. On Thursday, he stood by as California Sen. Alex Padilla was handcuffed and forced to the ground at a press conference hosted by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. Now, other Democratic politicians say they fear being seen at immigration protests, confident that Essayli will seize any chance to put former colleagues behind bars and revel in the fallout. 'As legislators, we know fully well that if he has an opportunity and can somehow connect us to any violence or any disruptions that are going on, he is going to try to arrest us,' Assemblymember Corey Jackson said in an interview. 'It makes me feel crazy that I have to say these things. But it's the truth.' Essayli is President Donald Trump's man on the immigration battlefield of Los Angeles — a rapid status shift for a politician who not long ago was a junior, little-liked Republican state lawmaker. As an agitator turned enforcer with an ax to grind and the full weight of federal law enforcement at his back, Essayli is animated by many of the same vengeful impulses that drive the president who appointed him. (Essayli did not respond to interview requests for this story.) 'The Democrats that bullied Bill Essayli should be very worried,' said Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, a Republican who worked to get Essayli elected before serving alongside him. 'They've never been held accountable. But life changes.' Any story about the arc of Bill Essayli's career should probably begin on April 10, 2002. While visiting the Wells Fargo branch where his mother worked, the 17-year-old Essayli witnessed a bank robber leaving the building. As Essayli tells it, he instinctively jumped in his car to follow the suspect, writing down the thief's license number so he could report the vehicle to federal investigators. His actions that day earned him a personal letter from then-FBI Director Robert Mueller, a man who would later go on to investigate Essayli's current boss, who praised the teenager's 'tremendous initiative.' Raised by Lebanese immigrant parents on the western edge of the Inland Empire, east of Los Angeles, Essayli was long drawn to law enforcement, serving as a volunteer in Corona's police department Explorer program. After becoming the first member of his family to graduate college, Essayli attended Chapman University School of Law, which has been home to prominent conservatives like John Eastman and Hugh Hewitt. Essayli went into private practice before two years as a Riverside County prosecutor and four as an assistant U.S. attorney. In that role he worked on the deadly 2015 shooting and attempted bombing by alleged homegrown extremists in San Bernardino. In 2018, Essayli became directly involved in politics, joining a campaign to repeal a gas-tax increase while mounting his own failed, somewhat moderate, candidacy for the state assembly. Four years later, after district lines were redrawn, Essayli ran again on a tough on crime and conservative school issues platform. He was the first Muslim elected to the California State Assembly, representing a diverse, semi-rural region in a district Trump won by 12 points in 2024. But when the clean-cut Essayli came to Sacramento in 2022, he made little effort to conform to the capital's hobnobby culture and was quite open about how much he detested it. Even fellow Republicans who agreed with his politics disagreed with his tactics and aggressive stance toward Democrats and his own party. His political life, as his friend DeMaio described it, was a 'lonely' one. Upon arriving in the capital he hung the 2002 letter from Mueller on his office wall. Essayli quickly made a name for himself by taking up red-meat conservative causes and authoring bills that would require school staff to notify parents if their children might be transgender and mandate government identification to vote. He raged against the state's Covid-19 restrictions and criticized critical race theory. None of his bills became law, but Essayli distinguished himself on the Assembly floor with his penchant for political theater. His pattern of outlandish outbursts and near-physical altercations were of the sort that largely disappeared from the legislative process in the nineteenth century (Jackson himself once had to be restrained from Essayli after the two clashed on the Assembly floor). Other lawmakers, staff and lobbyists traded accounts of their favorite Essayli episodes. In one, he called the speaker pro tempore a 'fucking liar' on the Assembly floor. In another he banged a fist on his desk in petulant fury, shouting into the void of his muted microphone as state lawmakers looked on. To like-minded conservatives, this presented a vision of how a disruptive, aggressive opposition party should function. DeMaio, who was elected to the Assembly two years after Essayli and has followed in his footsteps, said he showed how an opposition party could 'illustrate how the other side is wrong' even if you don't get 'drinks paid for at the bars.' Essayli wasn't worried about rubbing people the wrong way, according to his former chief of staff Shawn Lewis. On a personal level, he was kind and even funny. But Essayli, according to Lewis, was also driven by 'an unshakable sense of what is right and wrong.' The outbursts were no performance, but rather the outward projections of a true believer's frustrations. 'Bill Essayli sees things as they can and should be, not as they are,' Lewis said. But at least some political observers believe that Essayli's moves were calculated. There are few avenues to power for a hard-right Republican in Democrat-dominated California. Serving as an avatar for the Trump administration's talking points within the state Legislature was one of them. And the performances led to even bigger platforms: regular appearances on Fox News that won him a casual following nationally among the MAGA faithful. 'I think he's a very smart guy,' Anthony Rendon, a former Assembly speaker, said of Essayli. 'There's nothing Bill does that isn't very well thought-out.' In April 2025, Essayli announced that he would be leaving Sacramento to accept an interim appointment as the top federal prosecutor for seven Southern California counties with a population of nearly 20 million people. Elsewhere, Trump sought out personal confidants, longtime political allies and loyal defenders to fill U.S. attorney's offices. In his hometown of New York City, Trump named Jay Clayton, who had served as his appointee atop the Securities and Exchange Commission, to the post. Trump's former personal attorney Alina Habba was named the prosecutor in New Jersey, home to Trump's Bedminster golf course. In Washington, D.C., he has placed conservative legal activist Ed Martin, a former lawyer for Jan. 6 defendants, and Fox News host Jeanine Pirro into powerful prosecutorial positions. Essayli does not have the same direct connection to Trump's circle, but his appointment vindicated the way Essayli had spent his brief time in Sacramento. Upon being named to the post, he made clear he was ready to adopt Trump's ethos. "I intend to implement the President's mission to restore trust in our justice system and pursue those who dare to cause harm to the United States and the People of our nation,' Essayli said. Newly backed by a small army of lawyers and special agents, Essayli is aiming at many of the same targets that eluded him as a politician. In April, he launched a task force to investigate fraud and corruption within homelessness funding sources administered by California's Democratic officials. In May, he threw his support behind a Justice Department investigation into Title IX violations in the state, alleging that transgender athletes were 'violating women's civil rights.' At the beginning of June, Essayli warned an air quality management district in Southern California to abandon plans to impose fees on gas appliances, threatening 'all appropriate action' to stop the regulations. But it is his role backing Trump's immigration enforcement actions that has given Essayli his biggest opportunity to flex his newfound power. Earlier this week, prominent conservative commentator Marc Thiessen suggested that Essayli may have found a workaround for sanctuary city laws, by charging migrants held on state charges with federal crimes in an effort to force local officials to turn them over to ICE. (Thiessen did not respond to a request to explain further.) In Los Angeles, his authority ran up against the most basic form of dissent: public protest. As immigration enforcement officials, aided by Essayli's search warrants and federal agents, launched targeted raids of migrant communities, they were met by demonstrators who intended to stand in the way. On Monday, Essayli announced that his prosecutors would use social media and video evidence to pursue protesters who threw objects at officers. Yesterday, two protesters were charged with possessing Molotov cocktails, which Essayli said would be punished by up to 10 years in prison. 'I don't care who you are — if you impede federal agents, you will be arrested and prosecuted,' Essayli wrote on X after Huerta's arrest on June 6. Immigrant advocacy and LGBTQ+ rights organizations allege that he intends to use that authority to 'prosecute his political opponents.' 'Bill Essayli spent his short career in the Legislature with a singular agenda: to attack the students and families he was supposed to serve,' said Kristi Hirst, the co-founder of Our Schools USA, an advocacy organization that pushes for LGBTQ-friendly school policies. 'Essayli is not interested in seeking justice.' Those concerns have now manifested in a political campaign called Stop Essayli run by Jacob Daruvala, a former constituent of Essayli's and a local LGBTQ+ advocate. The lobbying effort, which remains something of a hail Mary, is aimed at persuading Sens. Adam Schiff and Padilla to block Essayli's official confirmation, which would rid him of his interim title. If a permanent replacement is not confirmed within 120 days, the federal district court for his jurisdiction would instead appoint someone else to serve in the role until a Senate confirmation is successful. But without the votes to block his path, it is only a delicate historical courtesy, which Schiff and Padilla will have to ask the Senate to respect, that stands between Essayli and a permanent assignment. Daruvala is asking California's senators to withhold their 'blue slips,' a Senate tradition in which committees defer to a nominee's home-state senators for guidance on confirmation. There is something poetic in that question. After Essayli made his name defying the decorum of the California Legislature, it is only decorum that can halt his upward rise. Jeremy B. White contributed to this report.

Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Anti-Trump ‘No Kings' rallies begin in South Florida in national day of protests
The first demonstrators gathered throughout South Florida Saturday morning as part of a national day of rallies against what protesters see as President Donald Trump's excessive accumulation of executive power. At Phipps Skate Park in West Palm Beach, just over a mile from the president's Palm Beach home of Mar-a-Lago, about 300 people gathered by 10 a.m., carrying signs and waving American flags. To the sound of a banging a drum, they cheered and chanted 'No ICE, no KKK, no fascist USA' and carried signs that read 'SILENCE = COMPLIANCE ABOLISH ICE NOW,' 'and 'NO FAUX KING WAY.' The robust early turnout came as a relief to one demonstrator, Peter Smith, 29, who had worried that people weren't speaking out enough as the country went down a 'dark path' toward fascism. 'Throwing a North Korea-style military parade in the U.S. is ridiculous,' he said. 'Mass deportations are ridiculous. Taking armed and armored ICE agents into schools, workplaces restaurants. It all looks like fascism and we need to do everything we can to stop it.' Organized by a coalition of liberal groups under the 'No Kings' banner, an estimated 2,000 demonstrations are planned across the United States to coincide with Trump's birthday and the spectacle of a military parade through Washington, D.C. Major demonstrations planned in South Florida include a march from Phipps Skate Park to Mar-a-Lago, a rally at Meyer Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach and a rally at Sunrise Boulevard on the beach in Fort Lauderdale. Other demonstrations are planned in Coral Springs, Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach and Miami, among other cities. Anti-Trump protests will unfold across South Florida this weekend. Here's what to expect At Phipps Skate Park, Paulina Parraga, a former American history teacher, said her main concern Saturday aside from immigration was Trump's disregard for due process. 'The fact that he really believes he's above the law,' she said. 'And fact that he has no respect for the Constitution.' She brought her daughter in law, Tania Beltran, a recent immigrant from Colombia, and Tania's sister, Sara Beltran, who was visiting from Colombia. Before heading out Saturday, they wondered whether they should bring their passports, despite Beltran being a legal immigrant and Parraga, the daughter of Colombian immigrants, being a U.S. citizen. 'I'm an immigrant,' Tania Beltran said. 'Trump hates immigrants … Everyone knows the people — they are the more hard workers are the immigrants. They are the ones that do the jobs no one wants to do.' As organizers gathered protesters at the park to prepare for the march to Mar-a-Lago, Ram Om, 67, waved a tattered American flag at cars on South Dixie Highway. 'That's the condition of our country right now,' he said, referring to the flag. 'It's getting beat up, it's getting torn apart, and there's no place but down in the trajectory that we're going right now.' Shalon Bull, a Palm Beach County science teacher, attended with her two daughters to protest what she saw as Trump's attacks on science and education. 'There are reasonable, educated citizens that want a better tomorrow based on evidence, based on science, based on fairness and compassion for others, and democracy,' she said. On the beach in Fort Lauderdale, about 80 people arrived early for a demonstration planned at Sunrise Boulevard and State Road A1A. Barricades lined the road separating the east sidewalk from the street. There was a cacophony of car horns in response to signs carried by demonstrators that read 'Honk to impeach.' Other signs read, 'Make Tacos Great Again,' No Kings Since 1776,' and 'The Real Criminal is in the White House.' A boat parade to celebrate Trump's birthday will take place on the Intracoastal Waterway from Jupiter Inlet to Mar-a-Lago, an event that has been held annually. Leaders of the demonstrations have promised the events would be peaceful. But Florida's Republican leaders, pointing to the violence that attended some of the pro-immigrant protests in Los Angeles, warned demonstrators that any violence would meet an aggressive response. During an interview this week with a conservative podcast host, Gov. Ron DeSantis told motorists that if 'a mob comes and surrounds your vehicle and threatens you, you have a right to flee for your safety. And so if you drive off and you hit one of these people, that's their fault for impinging on you. You don't have to sit there and just be a sitting duck and let the mob grab you out of your car and drag you through the streets.' Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier warned in a news conference Thursday that any rioters would face arrest. At the same news conference, Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey warned that violent protesters could face a lethal response from law enforcement. 'Throw a brick, a firebomb or point a gun at one of our deputies, we will be notifying your family where to collect your remains at,' he said. 'Because we will kill you graveyard dead. We're not going to play.' South Florida police agencies remained on the alert with ramped-up street patrols. Fort Lauderdale Police spokeswoman Casey Liening said in a prepared statement that the department was 'aware of multiple demonstrations' on Saturday. 'There will be a noticeable law enforcement presence and officers will be monitoring all events closely to ensure the safety of participants, motorists, and our residents,' Liening said. 'We urge participants to immediately report suspicious or nefarious activity. Safety will always be our top priority.' West Palm Beach Police said in a statement Friday that residents should expect 'significant traffic delays in the downtown area on Saturday, June 14, due to planned demonstrations. The events are expected to draw large crowds, and several roadways may be impacted by heavier-than-normal traffic … The West Palm Beach Police Department supports everyone's right to peaceful assembly and is committed to ensuring the safety of all participants and members of the public. Please stay aware of your surroundings.' This is a developing story, so check back for updates. Click here to have breaking news alerts sent directly to your inbox.
Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
An old Capitol Hill troublemaker is trying to clinch a megabill deal
It's a scene jarringly familiar to many Republicans on Capitol Hill: a high-stakes piece of legislation, a tense standoff between GOP leaders and conservative hard-liners — and Mark Meadows in the middle of it all. The former North Carolina congressman and Donald Trump chief of staff has been lying low in recent years. But he's re-emerged as a behind-the-scenes sounding board for Republican hard-liners, who view him as an informal conduit with the White House as they try to shape the president's 'big, beautiful bill.' It's just the latest turn for Meadows, who played a central role in ousting John Boehner as speaker, then served as conservative gadfly in Paul Ryan's House GOP before leaving for the White House. He was at Trump's side through 2020 until the ignominious end of his first term. His most recent headlines have concerned his role in the 'stop the steal' efforts that followed the 2020 election and his interactions with Trump during the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. Reports of an immunity deal and his testimony to a federal grand jury made him persona non grata in some MAGA circles. But Meadows, who declined to comment for this story, has maintained a foothold on the hard right as a senior partner at the Conservative Partnership Institute — a conservative think tank in Washington headed by former South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint. It's where the current iteration of the House Freedom Caucus, which Meadows once led, huddles for its weekly meetings, and he keeps in frequent touch with the group's members. Those conversations have heated up in recent weeks as the GOP megabill has moved to the top of the Capitol Hill agenda. This past Tuesday evening, for instance, Meadows ventured into the Capitol complex to meet with a small cadre of hard-liners from both chambers: GOP Sens. Rick Scott of Florida, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Mike Lee of Utah, as well as Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. The meeting in Lee's office, which was first reported by POLITICO, focused on how the right flank could hang onto some of its biggest priorities in the House version of the megabill, while trying to eke out some new wins in the Senate. 'He's just trying to figure out how to thread the needle here,' Johnson said in an interview. Added Scott, 'Mark is trying to help get a deal done.' All five sitting lawmakers who attended the Tuesday evening meeting have threatened to oppose Trump's domestic-policy package if it doesn't meet their demands, a strategy Meadows is no stranger to. He played a key role, for instance, in shaping the first attempt at major party-line legislation in Trump's first term — a 2017 attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. He pushed as Freedom Caucus chair to make the bill much more aggressive in undoing the 2010 law's mandates. Meadows helped broker deals that ultimately got a bill through the House, but it went too far for key senators, and the effort fizzled. Now, according to Republicans who have spoken with him, Meadows has been helpful in brainstorming ideas for hard-liners as they seek to force as many of their demands into the bill as possible. He's also viewed by others as eager to stay in the mix on Capitol Hill — akin to a sort of MAGA Zelig who likes to be where the action is. 'He wants to be involved,' said one House Republican, who was skeptical that Meadows is serving a GOP interest larger than himself. It's unclear whether Meadows' role has been blessed by the White House, where opinions about 'The Chief's Chief' — as Meadows titled his memoir — vary widely. Administration officials are aware of Meadows' quiet shuttle diplomacy in the name of the president's signature policy item. Even if the Trump administration hasn't formally sanctioned his role, GOP lawmakers see him as someone who still has the ear of the president and his advisors. Scott noted that Meadows has 'a good working relationship with the White House.' Johnson said it was his impression that Meadows is still actively engaged with the administration, even though he's technically out of government. 'It's my understanding that President Trump's former chiefs stay in touch with him,' Johnson said, adding that Meadows is trying to play a 'helpful role.' Meadows grew so loyal at one point that Trump publicly lauded Meadows during a 2020 rally for physically staying by his side when he contracted Covid. But after Trump lost the election and amid the post-Jan. 6 flurry of congressional and federal investigations, the president and some top MAGA figures increasingly saw Meadows as an unreliable ally given reports about a possible federal immunity deal. 'Some people would make [an immunity] deal, but they are weaklings and cowards,' Trump wrote in 2023. 'I don't think that Mark Meadows is one of them, but who really knows?' In the end, Meadows was never charged federally and Trump's indictment on conspiracy changes related to the 2020 election never went to trial. Then, after Trump's re-election, Meadows assumed his quiet role as power broker. Meadows has popped up in the House at several big moments in recent months. He huddled with hard-liners and House GOP leaders separately during speaker election fights, including when a small group of conservatives ousted Kevin McCarthy in October 2023. He emerged from Speaker Mike Johnson's office just a few days before Trump's inauguration before being spotted on the House side of the Capitol multiple times later in the spring. Asked if he was working on Trump's behalf, Meadows replied: 'Oh no, I'm just here for a brief meeting.' He headed into the speaker's office late last month hours before the Louisiana Republican pulled off what many believed to be impossible — passing the House version of the megabill with the support of every Freedom Caucus member, save Chair Andy Harris of Maryland, who voted present. Unlike with Boehner, Ryan and McCarthy, Meadows is more ideologically aligned with Mike Johnson. The two men were both part of a group of House Republicans who took on the role of Trump's unofficial defenders during his first Senate impeachment trial, and Johnson — while never a member — has long had close ties to the Freedom Caucus, including when Meadows chaired the group. Now members of the Freedom Caucus are still in regular contact with Meadows, and the House GOP is studded with old Meadows allies, such as fellow HFC co-founder and current Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who estimated he still talks to Meadows once a week. Many of them see his low-key involvement in megabill talks as being in line with his general approach. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), who said he sees Meadows regularly, said he wouldn't be surprised if Meadows was 'facilitating' conversations, summing up his general approach as 'like, how do you get this done?' Rachael Bade contributed to this report.