DOGE’s critics — plus a few puppets — rally in Raleigh to protest ‘craziness’ in DC
“Stop the GOP Coup.” “America Has No King.” “DOGE Musk Go.”
Hundreds wielded signs with messages like these in Raleigh’s Bicentennial Plaza on Wednesday, protesting the Trump administration’s Elon Musk-led cost-cutting initiative known as the Department of Government Efficiency.
Hosted by North Carolina Democrats, the protest kicked off around noon with a speech from NC Democratic Party chair Anderson Clayton. She spoke in support of federal workers and defended programs like Medicaid and Social Security.
The anti-DOGE rally drew crowds wielding signs against Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Congress alike.
Gary Brewer of Raleigh named several reasons he decided to attend: worries over Social Security, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. A disabled veteran, Brewer said the most important reason was to protect democracy.
“We are impacted every day in the sense that we are not seeing democracy in action,” he told The News & Observer.
Rep. Terry Brown of Mecklenburg County spoke at the event and shared similar sentiments. “We are witnessing a systematic dismantling of our government,” he said.
The rally also featured speeches from Sen. Graig Meyer, Hampton Dellinger — the former special counsel fired by Trump — and Sen. Natalie Murdock, who blasted the Trump administration’s targeting of the U.S. Agency for International Development. She cited the impact on FHI 360 — a Durham-based international nonprofit that has put more than 370 workers in North Carolina on indefinite leave.
One attendee, Jessica Simons, is a health care worker from Burlington and said many of her patients rely on Medicaid. Potential cuts to the program in Congress would mean she could serve fewer patients, she told The N&O.
Rep. Rodney Pierce said any cuts to Medicaid would be “disastrous.”
“Economic prosperity means nothing if we are not healthy enough to enjoy it,” he said in a speech to the crowd.
Helen McNeill traveled from Garner to attend the rally and called the actions of Musk and the Trump administration “craziness.” The fate of Social Security and education were among her biggest concerns.
Leslie Foster attended the rally because she cares about education and worries about what the potential closure of the U.S. Department of Education could mean for educators like her daughter, who is a first-grade public school teacher.
Blaire Lavere of Raleigh said she attended the rally on behalf of her son, 11, and daughter, 12.
Lavere said she will likely not feel the brunt of the Trump administration’s actions in her lifetime — but fears her children will in the years to come.
“What happens to them if the Department of Education shuts down? What if my daughter doesn’t have the same rights I do? What if those rights aren’t the same everywhere?”
Republicans responded to the protest in a news release.
“Democrats didn’t hold angry protests when inflation was hurting American families,” a spokesperson for the state Republican Party said, “or when Western North Carolina desperately needed resources after Hurricane Helene.”
The party’s response to the rally went on to call the event “silly” and an “anti-DOGE stunt.”
“Republicans are governing and Democrats are just obstructing.”
The event closed with larger-than-life puppets — caricatures of Trump, Musk and Russian President Vladimir Putin — leading the crowd to the Legislative Building across the street, where some continued the demonstration in the lobby.
This story was originally published March 12, 2025 at 4:38 PM with the headline "DOGE’s critics — plus a few puppets — rally in Raleigh to protest ‘craziness’ in DC."