EXPOSED: How $2.3 Billion Funded the "No Kings" Protests - Follow the Money

The "No Kings" protests on October 18, 2025 claimed to be the largest grassroots demonstration in American history, with organizers boasting 7 million participants across 2,700 events. But investigative journalist Asra Nomani uncovered a disturbing truth: nearly 400 organizations with $2.3 billion in annual revenues coordinated what they marketed as spontaneous activism. This wasn't democracy in action—it was industrial-scale political warfare.

The Investigative Journalist Who Exposed the Truth

Asra Nomani isn't a partisan hack. She co-founded the Muslim Reform Movement opposing Islamic extremism and was a close colleague of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and murdered by Pakistani militants in 2002. Since Pearl's death, Nomani has dedicated her career to investigating how ideology and sectarian hatred fuel violence, founding The Pearl Project to continue that mission.

For months, Nomani investigated the No Kings protests. What she discovered should alarm every American who values honest political discourse.

A $2.3 Billion Political Machine Disguised as Grassroots

Published in her Fox News investigation, Nomani documented that the No Kings protests were orchestrated by nearly 400 separate organizations—not 10, not 50, but 400 coordinated groups working in lockstep.

The breakdown is staggering:

• 198 Democratic-aligned nonprofits and political action committees
• 70 official Democratic National Committee affiliates organizing across 21 states
• 118 radical organizations leading the most extreme protest elements, with combined annual revenues of $204 million

Do the math: That's nearly 400 organizations with over $2.3 billion in annual revenues. This wasn't a people's movement—it was corporate-level political coordination dressed in democracy's clothing.

Tax-Exempt Nonprofits Waging Political Warfare

Many of these organizations operate as 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofits, supposedly focused on education, advocacy, or social welfare—not running coordinated campaigns against sitting presidents. Yet they're exploiting nonprofit status, subsidized by taxpayer dollars, to wage partisan warfare.

Follow the Soros Money

Nomani traced direct funding from billionaire George Soros to key organizations:

• Indivisible: Co-founders Lee Greenberg and Ezra Levin received a $3 million two-year grant from Soros' Open Society Foundations
• American Civil Liberties Union: Listed as a protest partner
• American Federation of Teachers: President Randy Weingarten spoke at rallies
• MoveOn, Public Citizen, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Democratic Socialists of America: All confirmed organizing partners

The Coordination Playbook

The protest coordination goes far deeper than funding. Nomani documented how these groups shared "No Kings toolkits" on Google Docs containing:

• Pre-written messaging and talking points
• Sample event agendas
• Mobilization tactics
• Media outreach strategies
• Instructions to "identify at least one group member responsible for firing up the crowd"

Cookie-cutter graphics flooded social media with identical messaging, signage, hashtags, and tactics—all coordinated from the top down, deployed nationwide simultaneously.

The Palestine Connection

Anti-Israel organizations embedded Palestine contingents nationwide. Jewish Voice for Peace, the Palestine American League, NYC Labor for Palestine, and UAW Labor for Palestine created dedicated contingents marching alongside No Kings crowds.

In Philadelphia, protesters spray-painted "Hamas is coming" on statues. In Sacramento, the Palestine American League promoted its "Palestine Contingent" to show California leaders that "genocide in Palestine must be on the agenda." In New York City, signs read "From Palestine to Mexico, all the walls have to go" and "No war with Iran."

Consider the timing: Just days before these protests, President Trump brokered a historic peace deal freeing all 20 living Israeli hostages after 738 days in Hamas captivity. He signed the accord in Egypt and addressed the Israeli Knesset. Even Democrats like Bill Clinton and Susan Rice credited Trump for achieving what Biden couldn't in two years.

Yet these same organizations marched with pro-Hamas messaging.

What Really Happened at the Protests

While mainstream media showed smiling grandmothers with hand-painted signs and people in inflatable frog costumes, they ignored what happened after dark.

Jason Rantz Predicted the Violence

Conservative radio host Jason Rantz, author of What's Killing America? Inside the Radical Left's Tragic Destruction of Our Cities, warned before the June No Kings protests that these rallies would follow the 2020 Black Lives Matter playbook: peaceful demonstrations during the day providing cover for violent radicals emerging after dark.

He was right.

In Seattle, an estimated 70,000 marched peacefully during the day. But once crowds dispersed, militants in black bloc gear appeared, setting a Lime scooter on fire, assaulting police officers, and attacking journalists with mace.

In Tukwila, Washington, Antifa militants swarmed a Department of Homeland Security facility, assaulting officers with frozen water bottles.

In Portland, radicals forcibly entered an ICE facility. Antifa groups then posted flyers in ICE agents' neighborhoods with names, addresses, and photos of them and their families, accompanied by messages like "Peace for ICE."

October 18 Violence the Media Ignored

The October 18 protests followed the same pattern:

• Protesters carried signs with guillotines in Washington, D.C.
• Demonstrators openly mocked Charlie Kirk's murder and called for killing Trump advisor Stephen Miller
• One protester with a Mexican flag made throat-slitting gestures at Kirk supporters
• Around 7:30 PM in Portland, about 500 demonstrators gathered outside the ICE facility
• Federal agents deployed tear gas, pepper balls, and flash bangs
• 11 arrested in Spokane, multiple arrests in Denver and other cities

This is the strategy: Large legal demonstrations attract families and generate positive media coverage. When permits expire and crowds thin, the militants make their move. If police respond, organizers claim authorities are "cracking down on peaceful protesters."

The Math Doesn't Add Up

Let's examine the "7 million participants" claim with basic arithmetic:

7 million ÷ 2,700 events = 2,593 people per event average

Sounds impressive until you dig deeper.

Four major cities claimed nearly 700,000 combined:

• New York: 100,000
• DC: 200,000
• Chicago: 250,000
• San Francisco: 140,000

That's 690,000 people (10% of the total) in just four metro areas.

6.31 million remaining ÷ 2,696 events = 2,341 per event

But when you subtract Houston (13,500-15,000), Portland (tens of thousands), Seattle, Los Angeles, Boston, and Philadelphia—all claiming thousands—what's left for the other 2,600+ events?

The reality: Most were tiny. Maybe 100 people in small towns, 200 in rural areas. In Moab, Utah, one resident described it: "The whole town marched down one sidewalk and back up the other. It was over after one lap."

Photos from smaller towns showed dozens of people—mostly elderly, mostly white, mostly affluent—holding signs on street corners.

The Three-and-a-Half-Hour "Historic" Protest

By 3:30 PM, it was over.

The New York Police Department reported "the majority of No Kings protests dispersed as of 3:30 p.m. local time with all traffic closures lifted." The protests started around noon.

Three and a half hours. Everyone home before dinner.

In Washington, D.C., where events were scheduled noon to 2 PM, media noted "crowds in DC started to disperse by 2:33." Some left before it officially ended.

The greatest protest in American history lasted three and a half hours.

Compare this to real grassroots movements: Tea Party rallies where working people took vacation days. Trucker convoys where participants lost income. Real movements involve sacrifice. These protests were scheduled noon to 2 PM so nobody missed brunch.

Independent crowd scientists estimated between 4.4 and perhaps 6.5 million participants—not 7 million—and even those estimates relied on organizer reports rather than systematic verification.

The Ultimate Hypocrisy: Who Secured the Protests?

While this $2.3 billion machine staged photo ops on Saturday, October 18—day 18 of the government shutdown—200 Capitol Police officers worked the DC protest without pay.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (44 years in Congress) marched with protesters. Senator Bernie Sanders (34 years in federal office) lectured about standing up to power. Elizabeth Warren preached about Republicans losing their "spine" while her party refused to pay the military.

Combined, these three politicians have over 90 years in positions of federal power. And they're lecturing about kings while refusing to fund the government.

Speaker Mike Johnson nailed it: "If President Trump was a king, the government would be open right now. If President Trump was a king, they would not have been able to engage in that free speech exercise."

Exactly right. Trump can't unilaterally reopen the government—he needs Congress to pass a budget. But Chuck Schumer won't bring it to a vote because Democrats wanted their protests first. They couldn't face their base if they'd compromised.

The real kings are the ones with $2.3 billion for protests. The ones in power for decades. The ones coordinating 400 organizations while calling it grassroots.

What They're Really Protesting

Let's be clear: They're not protesting authoritarianism. They're protesting success.

Trump achieved what Biden couldn't:

• Middle East peace: Freed all 20 living Israeli hostages after 738 days in captivity
• Border security: Crossings down 95% (from 137,473 monthly under Biden to 7,181 under Trump)
• Economic improvement: Inflation dropping, energy production up, manufacturing returning

Under Biden, drugs flowed in. Cartel operatives flowed in. Potential terrorists like the Hamas operative recently arrested in Louisiana—who participated in the October 7 attacks—entered unchecked.

Trump reversed it all: Wall construction resumed. Remain in Mexico enforced. Catch and release ended. Cartels designated as foreign terrorist organizations.

Trump can't even open the government alone. He needs Congress, negotiation, compromise. That's not how a king operates. That's how a Constitutional Republic operates.

They're mad because he's delivering results, and their predictions of disaster haven't materialized.

The Takeaway: Follow the Money

This wasn't democracy in action. It was a $2.3 billion political operation orchestrated by nearly 400 organizations, funded by billionaires like George Soros, coordinated through DNC affiliates, protected by tax-exempt nonprofit status, and executed with precision messaging and tactics.

The "largest protest in American history" lasted three hours and dispersed before dinner.

The real violence happened after cameras left, following the exact 2020 playbook Jason Rantz predicted.

The math doesn't support their attendance claims.

And the ultimate irony: Democrats with billions in funding and decades in power are calling Trump a king while they refuse to fund the military and hold the government hostage.

Asra Nomani exposed the money. Jason Rantz documented the violence. The math destroyed their claims. The hypocrisy speaks for itself.

Don't let this story get buried. The $2.3 billion machine is counting on you forgetting.

John O'Connor hosts O'Connor's Right Stand, delivering deep-dive conservative analysis every Tuesday and Thursday, and O'Connor's Quick Strike for rapid-fire news coverage Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Find show notes and more at OConnorsRightStand.com