Soldotna protesters call for Congress to oppose executive overreach

Roughly a dozen protesters stood along the Sterling Highway in Soldotna on Monday, offering support for federal employees, lands and departments and expressing opposition to the actions of President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk to slash federal spending.

In only the first weeks of the second Trump administration, thousands of federal employees have been laid off as entire programs and departments have been shuttered, the United States has been pulled from the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Accords and Musk’s allies have gained access to sensitive federal databases, including that of the U.S. Treasury.

The local display was among others around the country on Monday, President’s Day, as part of a “No Kings on President’s Day” effort orchestrated by the online 50501 movement — whose name represents “50 protests, 50 states, one day.”

In Homer, approximately 20 people held signs and protested at Homer’s WKFL Park, radio station KBBI AM 890 reported. The Juneau Empire reported that more than 400 gathered at the Alaska State Capitol to oppose the Trump administration’s mass purge of federal workers, targeting of refugees for deportation, elimination LGBTQ+ inclusivity and other actions. The Anchorage Daily News reported hundreds participating similar demonstrations in Anchorage.

The protesters in Soldotna stood outside of the Blazy Mall, where U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan maintain local offices. Members of the group said they were calling for action from Alaska’s legislators.

“What’s happening in Washington is totally illegal,” Gary Todd, who held a large sign topped with an American flag, an Alaska flag and a Pride Progress flag. At the top of his mind was Musk’s work to dismantle government programs and personnel. It’s Congress, he said, who hold “the power of the purse.”

Among the affected agencies, Todd said, is the United States Agency for International Development. Musk on X, the social media platform he owns, celebrated “feeding USAID into the wood chipper” on Feb. 3. The agency was established in 1961 by John F. Kennedy and was responsible for administering foreign aid and development assistance including health care, disaster relief, environmental protection and education.

The agency costs less than 1% of the federal government’s annual spending, per the Pew Research Center, and Todd says that money is worth spending.

“The whole world looked at us because of the positive stuff that did,” Todd said. “People, they’re not going to trust America anymore.”

Federal employees have important jobs that keep people safe, said Judy Nugent, a retired nurse who carried a sign that read “executive overreach no!” She said she was concerned about the people who have lost their jobs and the programs they supported, about the Trump Administration’s approach to the climate crisis, and about the erosion of the separation of powers.

The Trump administration’s “hobbling” of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. exit from the World Health Organization, she said, are other ways “we’re not being kept safe by our government.”

“There are experts in those fields,” she said. “People who work for the federal government deserve to have respect. They know what they’re doing.”

Todd said that he and many of the other protesters on Monday are retired, but they’re out pushing for change because they care about the next generation. He said the Trump Administration isn’t taking the right approach to the climate crisis.

“We’re leaving our kids a mess,” he said. “The world’s going to hell and they’re not doing anything about it.”

Nugent said she hopes to see Congress stand up to the administration, after realizing that “dictatorships are bad; democracies are good.” Murkowski and Sullivan, she said, are part of that.

“Murkowski thinks independently, at times,” she said. “I feel like Sullivan just rubber stamps everything that Trump does, and Trump doesn’t even understand who our allies are and who our enemies are.”

Todd, similarly, called for Murkowski and Sullivan to “stand up to some of the stuff that shouldn’t be happening.”

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.