Weekend protests rally support for opposition to Trump administration policies

By Evan Dawson,

Published April 7, 2025 at 2:54 PM EDT

Five smiling people wearing headphones sit around a table in a radio talk studio: a woman front left has short grey hair and is wearing glasses and a grey sweater; a man front center has short brown hair and is wearing glasses, a brown suit, a white button-down shirt, and a red tie; a man back left is bald and is wearing glasses and a black button-down shirt; a man back center has short white hair and a white mustache and beard and is wearing a grey striped sweater; a man at right has short dark hair and is wearing a grey button-down shirt, a grey checked blazer, jeans and blue striped socks. A large cardboard cutout of a hand in the background reads "HANDS OFF NPR & PBS." — (foreground) Connor Jane O'Brien, Don Thompson, (background) Chris Thompson, and Scott Fearing on "Connections with Evan Dawson" on Monday, April 7, 2025

A smiling man with short dark hair wearing a blue button-down shirt and a grey blazer. He is holding a pair of eyeglasses. The word "Connections" appears on the left side of the photo in vertical letters.

"Hands Off" protest organizers expected maybe a thousand people in Rochester; they got more than 3,000. In the Finger Lakes, roadside rallies expected to draw a dozen, attracted hundreds. The nation's capital saw an estimated 30,000 demonstrators — triple the expected turnout.

But even some of the demonstrators disagreed on what the purpose was: galvanize a movement? Attract Trump voters? Persuade fence sitters?

Our guests attended the local events this weekend and discuss them.

Connor Jane O'Brien, organizer for the Rochester "Hands Off" rally
Scott Fearing, LGBTQ+ safe space coordinator at the University of Rochester
Chris Thompson, engineer and activist
Don Thompson, constitutional attorney

*Note: The guests provided the following links for listeners who would like to learn more about the following organizations:

Knowledge & Action ROC is online here and Facebook here.
Indivisible Rochester is on Facebook here and on Bluesky here.