Sens. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Chris Murphy (D., Conn.) passionately defended the anti-Trump No Kings rally in Washington, D.C., this weekend against allegations that it will attract Hamas sympathizers and other far-left radicals. But one of the senators’ fellow speakers has praised Hamas’s “resistance” against Israel, cheered the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump, referred to conservative activist Charlie Kirk as a “bitch” after his assassination last month, and expressed her desire for “the west” to “fall.”
Sanders pushed back earlier this week against House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.), who predicted that “Hamas supporters,” “antifa types,” and “Marxists” will be prevalent at the event. In a video posted to X, Sanders said No Kings is “not a ‘hate America’ rally.”
“Quite the contrary; it is a love America rally,” said Sanders.
Murphy echoed those remarks, calling Johnson’s sentiments “ridiculous, un-American, and unpatriotic” and said the Republican must “hate free speech.”
But Sanders and Murphy, billed as the headline speakers of the No Kings event, will appear on the same stage as Afeni Evans, a Washington, D.C.-based activist who embraces many of the causes Johnson identified.
Evans, who No Kings organizers list as an “impacted activist” over her arrest in August for evading subway fare, has condoned or downplayed various acts of political violence. She mocked calls for sympathy for Kirk, whose alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, embraced leftist politics and pro-LGBT causes.
“So if you want me to feel bad for that bitch, I can’t. I won’t. I can’t,” said Evans, an avowed member of the LGBT community.
She’s expressed support for the attempt on Trump’s life and lamented that the shooter missed.
“While we all may celebrate and make jokes about this moment, be very careful about what you put on the internet,” she said in an Instagram video on the day of the Trump shooting. “We live in the most fascistic country in the fucking world.”
“Missing is nasty work tho,” she wrote on the post.
She often attacks Israel, which she refers to as “the imaginary state,” while defending Hamas’s invasion of the Jewish state on Oct. 7, 2023, as a justifiable act of resistance.
In a video on Oct. 7, 2024, the one-year anniversary of the attack, Evans said “occupied people have a right to self defense.” In a video the next day, she called the Hamas attack an act of “resistance,” while also mocking Trump’s injury in the assassination attempt as a “little ear piercing.”
In a May 2024 post on X, she stated “fuck Israel” and “fuck every Zionist,” whom she said “are all demons worthy on [sic] contempt and HELL.” In 2021 she said Hamas “was democratically elected,” and “not a terrorist organization.”
Evans, an Army veteran, has expressed anti-American views, writing in a Jan. 2024 post that “The imaginary state will fall,” a reference to Israel, “and so will the west guns blazing and all.”
“It’s still fuck America,” she wrote in August.
She’s made other anti-American and anti-police statements on her feeds.
“All cops are b@stards and all politicians are cops,” she wrote on Nov. 16, 2023, and has referred to the United States as “Amerikkka,” a reference to the Ku Klux Klan.
Other notable speakers at the event include American Federation of Teachers chief Randi Weingarten, the cofounders of Indivisible, the group organizing No Kings, and Karen Attiah, the former Washington Post columnist who was fired last month for making racist and false statements about Kirk.
The groups partnering with No Kings range from well-known liberal advocacy groups like the ACLU and MoveOn to more extremist groups, such as Wespac Foundation. Wespac is the sponsor for the Palestinian Youth Movement, which Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) has called a “virulently antisemitic” organization, citing its partnership with Samidoun, a designated terrorist group affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Murphy, who recently divorced his wife and began dating George Soros-funded political operative Tara McGowan, did not respond to a request for comment.
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