Saturday’s No Kings rallies will be populated by several people who ordinary people, not just President Trump’s supporters, would find detestable. However, NBC correspondent Adrienne Broaddus made it her job on Saturday’s Today to ensure viewers would not be aware of them. Instead, she went to great lengths to portray Speaker Mike Johnson’s “hate-America rally” description as incorrect.
Broaddus teed up a clip of organizer Kathy Tholin by declaring, “Now, all of this is happening as people are expected to march through the streets of Chicago, rain or shine, today. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson called it a “planned America rally,” but organizers who spoke with me say this is their way to protest what they call government overreach.”
Fact-check: Johnson was talking about the D.C. rally, not the Chicago one. One of the speakers at the D.C. event is Afeni Evans, a Hamas apologist who downplayed the Charlie Kirk assassination and warned fellow leftists to avoid posting about the Trump assassination attempt online, not because she was horrified Trump was almost killed, but because she was warning about potential consequences for people who would post what they really felt. Evans, who will share the stage with Sens. Chris Murphy and Bernie Sanders, has also referred to America in 2023 as “Amerikkka.” Meanwhile, other cities will be inundated with similarly anti-Israel and socialist contingents.
As it was, Tholin claimed, “ICE is occupying our city. They are attacking our neighbors with tear gas, they are indiscriminately snatching people from streets and businesses and homes, and we are coming together on No Kings Day to say, no, this is not the city we want to live in.”
The radical suggestion that ICE operating in Chicago is tantamount to occupation aside, Broaddus concluded by hyping, “Thousands are expected to participate in the rallies across the country with one organizer saying the number of people signed up is more than double of what they saw in June.”
If two Republican senators shared the stage with a speaker who cheered liberals getting shot or promoted a terrorist organization, NBC would have done a very different segment.
Here is a transcript for the October 18 show:
NBC Today
10/18/2025
7:08 PM ET
ADRIENNE BROADDUS: Now, all of this is happening as people are expected to march through the streets of Chicago, rain or shine, today. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson called it a “planned America rally,” but organizers who spoke with me say this is their way to protest what they call government overreach. Take a listen.
KATHY THOLIN: ICE is occupying our city. They are attacking our neighbors with tear gas, they are indiscriminately snatching people from streets and businesses and homes, and we are coming together on No Kings Day to say, no, this is not the city we want to live in.
BROADDUS: And thousands are expected to participate in the rallies across the country with one organizer saying the number of people signed up is more than double of what they saw in June. Laura?
