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| Record crowd of 20,000 turns out to protest President Donald Trump at No Kings rally at Texas Capitol in Austin on June 14 |
Texas Guard MIA at Kings Day Protest
in Austin Despite Hype on Deployment
Capitol Inside
June 15, 2025
The heavy military presence that Governor Greg Abbott had promised failed to materialize at No Kings protests around Texas on Saturday with the exception of a detachment that had the task keeping tourists out of the Alamo during a rally in downtown San Antonio last night.
Abbott announced that he'd deployed 5,000 Texas National Guard for the sake of preserving law and order and responding to "acts of violence or chaos" that he apparently anticipated after the Department of Public Safety clashed with protesters at a peaceful demonstration in Austin early last week.
But the Republican governor may have balked on the planned deployment of Guard troops in the Capitol City in the face of stinging criticism from Austin Mayor Kirk Watson and major newspaper editorial boards on the tactic and the warlike rhetoric and snide comments that Abbott used to promote the move.
Abbott revealed his plans to send Guard members to protests this weekend on the same day last week that President Donald Trump dispatched the U.S. Marines into Los Angeles for demonstrations there. The Texas leader has been chided on social media for trying to emulate Trump with the Guard members deployment in a state where they clearly were not needed on Saturday.
Watson said last week that no one from the city of Austin requested assistance from the National Guard or the state for the protest this weekend. The mayor portrayed the National Guard deployment as overkill designed to milk the civic unrest for political theater. Saying Texas deserves better, the Houston Chronicle called Abbott out in a pair of editorials that accused him of taunting with "middle school" behavior and condescending rhetoric not fit for someone in high office.
After claiming that the National Guard officers had been trained for civil disturbances, the governor could have been embarrassed by an Austin American-Statesman story on Saturday morning that dispelled the training claim based on internal Texas Military Department documents that it obtained.
Several dozen Department of Public Safety officers were stationed at the Capitol on Saturday where the protest against Trump drew an estimated at 20,000 to the south grounds in what may have been the largest crowd for an event of this kind in history. When asked about the National Guard troops that the governor deployed for the protest here, a DPS officer said they probably were "close" by.
DPS troopers accompanied some of the protesters in a march through downtown Austin after the three-hour event at the Capitol ended before dark last night. The demonstrators dispersed shortly before 10 p.m. after DPS used tear gas to shut the protest down for good.
While it appeared that Abbott backed down from the National Guard's use in Austin and other major Texas cities, the governor could seek to reclaim the narrative by claiming that the protests on Saturday were peaceful as a result of his bluffing with the threat of the military deployment.
After 13 people were arrested at a deportation protest in Austin early last week, the only apparent related arrest on Saturday came when the DPS apprehended a man in La Grange for alleged threats against Democratic state lawmakers who were slated to appear at the Capitol rally.
more to come ...
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