Protesters start calling for Trump’s impeachment
Sharp political passions over President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and his links to Russia brought people onto the streets of cities around the globe on Saturday, mostly to condemn but some to praise him.
They came as Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations, ended days of confusion to make clear that “President Trump believes the climate is changing” and that man-made pollutants are partly responsible.
She insisted in a CNN interview that Trump, who has often called global warming a “hoax,” was concerned about the changing climate.
“Just because the US got out of a club doesn’t mean we aren’t going to care about the environment,” she said.
But Trump’s decision on Thursday to pull out of the Paris treaty, which is designed to cut harmful emissions and slow the Earth’s warming, sparked a wave of global condemnation and helped fuel some of the many protest marches on Saturday.
‘Lock him up’
The largest of the many US rallies organized as a March for Truth appeared to be in New York, where as many as 3,000 anti-Trump protesters descended on Foley Square in Lower Manhattan, with some shouting “Liar!” or “Lock him up!” or “Take back America!"
Nearly as many people converged around the Washington Monument in the US capital to similarly demand a full and independent investigation of the allegations that Trump or his aides might have colluded with Russia ahead of last year’s US presidential election to help Trump win.
“The president works for the American people, and not for a foreign entity around the world,” said Linda Sarsour, an organizer of the march and a cochair of the Women’s March in Washington last January.
Added Savannah Stark, a 22year-old from Ohio, “We need to keep working hard and raise our voices until he’s impeached.”
Other rallies were held in cities from Portland, Oregon, on the US West Coast to Munich, Germany, and Lima, Peru.
Demonstrators also demanded that Trump release his tax returns, a tradition among US presidents which Trump has steadfastly refused to follow.
Peaceful
The US demonstrations appeared to be mostly peaceful. They were far smaller than some of the earlier anti-Trump protests.
At the same time as the other rallies on Saturday, a few hundred Trump supporters gathered on the street in front of the White House to applaud the president’s withdrawal from the Paris treaty.
That rally was dubbed “Pittsburgh, Not Paris”—a reference to the president’s statement on Thursday, in announcing his plan to withdraw from the international climate treaty, that “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.”
Several people at the proTrump rally said they were unconcerned that exiting the treaty would leave the United States in the company of the only two countries that are not signatories—Nicaragua and Syria.
Pittsburgh correction
A sign at a nearby rally held as a counter to the “Pittsburgh, Not Paris” rally correctly noted that “Pittsburgh’s Mayor Supports the Paris Accord.”
In fact, Mayor Bill Peduto on Friday joined the mayors of some 175 other US cities and the governors of several states in announcing that his city would follow the terms of the Paris treaty.