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Saturday’s “No Kings” Day of Defiance—Plus, a Report from LA

On this episode of Start Making Sense, Indivisible's Ezra Levin on Saturday’s nationwide protests, and Harold Meyerson on the National Guard and the Marines in Los Angeles.

Jon Wiener

June 11, 2025

Protesters continue to clash with the Los Angeles Police Department in downtown Los Angeles over the immigration raids on Monday, June 9, 2025.(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

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Lessons of “No Kings”—Plus, Stopping the Medicaid Cuts | Start Making Sense
byThe Nation Magazine

Saturday’s ‘No Kings’ protests, with 5 million people at 2100 events, was the largest single day of protest in American history. Leah Greenberg of Indivisible will talk about how the event was organized, and what comes next.

Also: The Medicaid cuts provide a lifetime opportunity for us to reach the 70 million people who did not vote and the 60 per cent of Trump voters who are not MAGA — that's what Ai-jen Poo says. She's director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance and President of Care in Action, and a key labor organizer and strategist.

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With tanks rolling down the street in DC on Saturday and troops being deployed to LA, it’s never been more important to come together in nonviolent action to exercise our First Amendment right to peaceful protest. That’s what the organization Indivisible says about Saturday’s National Day of Defiance—the nationwide “No Kings” protests. Ezra Levin will explain; he’s a cofounder and co–executive director of Indivisible.

Also: Who, exactly, is being arrested by ICE agents in Los Angeles? Why is the National Guard in downtown LA?  And what are the 700 Marines Trump sent to LA supposed to do? Harold Meyerson will comment—he’s editor at large of The American Prospect.

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The Nation Podcasts

Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.

The Dems After Tuesday’s Primaries, plus Elmore Leonard’s Bad Guys / Start Making Sense
byThe Nation Magazine

On this episode of Start Making Sense, John Nichols analyzes this week’s primary results in California and elsewhere, and, from the archives, Elmore Leonard talks about where his characters and plots came from.

California’s jungle primary on Tuesday set the stage for the next Democratic governor of the state, and primaries in Iowa, New Jersey and elsewhere tested the strength of progressives in the party. John Nichols has our analysis.

Also: from the archives: Elmore Leonard, who died in 2013 at age 87, was unpretentious about his massive accomplishments: 45 novels, more than a dozen turned into movies, and a reputation as one of the great writers of dialogue. When we spoke in 2000, he had just published Pagan Babies, and his movies Get Shorty, Jackie Brown, and Out of Sight had been hits.

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Jon WienerTwitterJon Wiener is a contributing editor of The Nation and co-author (with Mike Davis) of Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties.


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