Mark Ruffalo calls ‘No Kings’ protesters Avengers in anti-Trump speech

Mark Ruffalo is invoking Marvel superheroes during demonstrations against Donald Trump.

At a protest in Bryant Park in New York City on Saturday — one of thousands of countrywide “No Kings” protests opposing Donald Trump’s policies — the Hulk actor called on his fellow Americans to stand up for their beliefs.

“We’re going to have to be brave if we want to be free,” Ruffalo said during a speech at the protest. “Being brave for what we hold dear — our freedoms, our democracy, and each other — it’s on us, guys. Literally, together, we’re the Avengers now. No one’s gonna come and save us, man. Americans unite.”

Earlier in his remarks at the protest — which was held June 14 to coincide with President Trump’s military parade celebrating his 79th birthday in Washington, D.C. — Ruffalo made an impassioned plea for peace and mutual respect.

“We’re holding on for dear life and what’s dear to us about being alive,” the 13 Going on 30 star said. “What’s dear to me is the feeling of calm and peace and safety. What’s dear to me is my health and my family and my friends and my work and my neighbors and my community and all the different beautiful people of this country.”

Ruffalo added that he believes the United States was founded on the principle “that we didn’t want to be ruled by a king, or a monarch, or a dictator, or a supreme leader, or some crappy-ass CEO,” seemingly in reference to Trump’s Wall Street career and Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s recent influence on the federal government. “That sucked,” Ruffalo said. “We hated that.”

The Spotlight actor also called for Americans to uphold “the simple notion that you can’t be arrested and tossed into a dungeon, or a detention center, or a concentration camp, or some damp basement without a fair trial,” alluding to the escalated ICE raids and deportations under Trump’s second administration. “We don’t f— with that,” he added.

“Sadly, today Donald Trump and the administration of billionaires, crackpots, and ICE brigades have taken over,” Ruffalo said. “We have a king and his court and his beige henchmen, and they’re trampling on our rights and our laws and our freedoms, making themselves richer with taxpayer dollars and making us less safe with their love of other kings and dictators and the likes of [Vladimir] Putin and [Benjamin] Netanyahu and You are the World.

The actor explained the inspiration for the protests’ timing. “While Trump today is blowing $45 million of our tax money on his kingly dictator military birthday bash in our nation’s capital, we are gathering here by the hundreds of thousands in locations of thousands around the USA and the world in the spirit of our founding fathers and our brothers and sisters of the Boston Tea Party,” he said. “We’re patriots, and we’re lovers of democracy.”

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Around 2,000 demonstrations under the “No Kings” banner unfolded on Saturday, many of which had turnouts in the thousands. The demonstrations follow a week of anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles that prompted Trump’s controversial deployment of the National Guard and a curfew instatement by Mayor Karen Bass.

Other entertainers who attended protests on Saturday included Ilana Glazer (who spoke immediately before Ruffalo), Susan Sarandon, Kerry Washington, Glenn Close, Ayo Edebiri, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, AnnaSophia Robb, and Emily Osment.

Watch Ruffalo’s full speech at the “No Kings” protest in New York above.