On the eve of Donald Trump being sworn in as the United States' 45th president, a massive rally was staged in the streets of New York near Trump International Hotel and headlined by a man who has played Trump on TV: Alec Baldwin.
Attended by the likes of Robert De Niro, Michael Moore, Cynthia Nixon, Mark Ruffalo, Julianne Moore, Cher, the Rev. Al Sharpton and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, the protest focused on fighting a perceived shift to authoritarianism under the Trump administration. Baldwin, often criticized by Trump on Twitter for his parody of him on "Saturday Night Live," assumed his Trump character at different points as he addressed the crowd.
In a serious tone, Baldwin said: "Donald Trump and Steve Bannon and Mike Pence and all these people that are a part of Trump's administration think you're going to lay down. The one thing they don't realize is that New Yorkers never lay down ... Are you going to fight? Are we going to have 100 days of resistance?
"Children ... they're never too young for you to start to teach them about what's going on here. They're never too young for you to teach them what a real American is. And an American wants full participation and full transparency of their government. And we've never been further away from that than we are now ... But there is hope. The hope is us and us fighting. One hundred days of resistance."
Cher, however, said it's "hard to have hope right now."
"I couldn't watch him come into Washington. I don't know that I will be able to watch the news for a very long time," she said.
"I kept seeing all of the things that he was doing, and I kept saying, 'This will be the thing,'" she said in reference to Trump's controversial actions before the election. "He's getting away with things that no president has gotten away with and it doesn't seem to bother anyone."
Despite voicing her opposition for the new president, Cher said that she hopes he'll make positive change. She also clarified her opinions, saying she doesn't hate his supporters.
DeNiro called Trump "a bad example of this country and this city."
"I don't care where he goes, I just never thought he'd go to Washington," he said.
Moore, who helped organize the rally, told the crowd: "We're going to win, folks. A little bit of pain, a little bit of pain, but a lot of work on our part will stop this man. He will not last the four years. It's a dangerous combination, a narcissist and a public official because it's all about what's in it for me -- me, me, me ... And when they think like that, that's when they break the law, and that's when he'll go down."
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