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Protests in 50 US states against Trump and Musk: ‘Hands off government and economy’

More than 1,200 demonstrations across the country. On the streets mostly pensioners and workers worried about collapsing funds and welfare cuts. Treasury minister: ‘False narrative’

Protests have exploded in the United States. In over 1,200 cities in all 50 US states, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets last weekend to say ‘hands off’ to Donald Trump and Elon Musk. A wave of demonstrations organised by more than 150 groups, including unions, civil rights associations, veterans, defence of the LGBT community and protection of electoral integrity.

Not only rights, as happened in the years of the first Trump presidency, but this time it is above all fear for the economy that moves the squares: many demonstrators were elderly or workers close to retirement, affected by the collapse of pension funds in the so-called ‘Black Friday’ that followed the announcement of the global and reciprocal duties wanted by Trump. A financial storm that wiped out life savings for many.

‘I’ve worked for over 40 years, yesterday I looked at my funds and I think now I’ll never be able to retire,’ 62-year-old Dorothy Auer told Business Insider during the event in New York, moved.

Among the most widespread fears are cuts to the Social Security Administration and Medicare, the health programme for the over-65s, part of the federal restructuring plan that Trump has informally entrusted to Elon Musk, though without an official appointment. ‘How did he get security clearances?’ wonders the 54-year-old Penny, referring to the naturalised South African-American billionaire.

Matt Watts, a protester in Michigan, told of moving his savings to more stable funds: ‘I hope to retire soon, I need to be able to count on these savings. Trump has imposed tariffs on countries that don’t deserve them and now we’re paying for it’.

On the political front, the words of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent – a former billionaire hedge fund manager – fuelled further controversy. Interviewed by NBC News, he called the pensioners’ concern a “false narrative”: “People who have saved for a lifetime don’t look at daily fluctuations”. But Democratic Senator Adam Schiff retorted harshly: ‘He and the president are rich, they don’t know what it’s like to lose everything. But Americans do. And while pensions burn, Trump is playing golf.’

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