From Marathon to the Monument: Inside the April Protest in D.C.

by Bill Popadich

Day 1 of Washington Protest 4/3

Our day:
We got up at 3:00 AM. Left Marathon at 4:30 AM.
Long drive to Miami International. It’s not far, only 90–100 miles, but took 3 hours. Lots of rush hour traffic. Bumper-to-bumper stop and go. I forgot what bumper-to-bumper, stop-and-go traffic was like. I remember now. I can’t believe I did that for 16 years in Chicago. We parked the car and got a shuttle to the airport. The airport was nicer than I remember. Dropped bags, visited the counter at Delta to add our security PreCheck numbers to reservations, cleared check-in, and went to Delta Crown Room. Nice.
The plane was good; we both got upgrades. I gave Cathy the first-class seat, and I took Comfort. I woke up just before landing at Reagan. The bags were good, but we waited for the Westin shuttle for about 45–50 minutes. The hotel was close, and we arrived by 1:30 PM.
We dropped bags and caught a Lyft to Senator Thune’s office in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. Extremely reasonable, $10 and 20 minutes' travel. Upon clearing security, we saw Thune leave with a group of people. We got to his office at about 2:35 and waited about 35 minutes. We met his senior advisor, Angela Merkle. She said she has been with him for 9 years and now resides full time in DC.
She gave us about 35 minutes.
My impression is she knew her stuff but was excellent at deflecting. I got on my bandwagon about cutting the VA and the goal of cutting 80,000. Her comment was that it didn’t happen yet, and that Congress would be the ones to decide. I said 7,800 were cut, and she said the court made Trump call them back and they were probationary employees but acknowledged that many have been with the government for years and 25% of them were veterans.
I told her that the plan was to eliminate mental health care and Burn Pit victims. She agreed, sort of. She said most of the Burn Pit rules were mandated by Congress and Congress would have the last word. I commented that Congress is the one to decide on all the cuts. She claimed they would have final say, but that is not what is happening now, so why would this suddenly change?
She went on to explain that the judicial branch was managing the illegal cuts. We said it was not an executive branch power to do this, and Congress has the job as defined by the Constitution. We pushed that the Republicans in Congress were doing nothing. The defense was that before anything is done or anyone is gone, it would go through Congress. (Again, I think bullshit.)
We covered other items like deportation without due process. Government secrets are being discussed on unsecured lines. She commented that the Republicans are asking for an investigation. I commented that when I operated a secret radio in the Army, in 1970, that I signed a document that if I shared secrets, I would forgo prosecution and would go to jail for 10 years and be fined $10,000. I said everyone on the call should be fired and considered for prosecution. I pressed as hard as I could. We were a bit ignored, and she was annoyed.
I am not sure she agreed to anything, but she promised to give our message to Thune.
We left the office building after 4:30 and walked to Union Station. It is an impressive train station. We caught the Metro there back to Arlington. The cost was $2.95 each and 35 minutes.
Tomorrow, we have four meetings. The first is at 8:30 AM with John Bleed, who carries the title of National Security Advisor for Congressman Blake Moore.

April 4, 2025 – Second Day in Washington
It’s raining today, but we are spending most of the day inside at meetings.
We took the Metro Blue Line to the Longworth building. We met at the cafeteria for breakfast with John Bleed. John’s title is National Security Advisor for Congressman Blake Moore. He would not allow us to buy him breakfast because it's against the rules. (We wish Clarence Thomas would have had the same ethics.) John is not from Utah but Wheaton, Illinois. He has been with Congressman Moore for two years.
John was the most knowledgeable of all we met. He gave us extremely positive feelings about his office trying to control cuts.
The big takeaway I got is that he said that there are 20% of the Republican House that refuse the Republican majority to do anything. Blake Moore is pro-veteran and military because of Hill Air Force and the amount of military in his district. This young man, John, will do well in life.
In looking at Blake Moore's background, he was a Democrat and switched to Republican after he lost a race in Utah.
Next (10:00 AM) we met Caroline Boyd and Karina Mariotti, National Security Advisors for Mike Lee in the Russell Senate Office. Cathy commented that she didn't get the warm and fuzzies from either of them. They seemed rushed and annoyed with our visit. I felt they had canned answers. I also felt they did not care what we felt. We got a negative comment from Karina about social services since the Roosevelt era. Lee wants to cut SS, Medicare, and Medicaid. There was no compromise here. Senator Mike Lee and his group are really radicals. This office gave me the creeps. Lee just got back from Greenland. I asked why he went, and we were told to make sure we protect Greenland's natural resources.
This guy is dangerous! Not responsible, not accountable, and radical.
This was our third meeting, and we are now getting it down. We have the same points but got nowhere here. Of all the meetings, this was the biggest waste of time. I told Cathy that I could debate this guy with a neutral audience and win. He has no passion or consideration for the average American. I am ashamed that he is from Utah.
Next meeting noon, Andrew Braun, Military Legislative Assistant for Senator Mike Rounds in the Hart building.
This was what we would call an incredibly positive meeting. Mike Rounds is extremely powerful. Like Moore, he clearly supports Ukraine. He sent me a letter saying that. Everyone we met but Mike Lee didn’t support the tariffs. For the life of me, I don’t understand why they won't collaborate with Democrats and stop Trump. My only guess is that support for the party means more than ethics. If they split the Republican Party, it will be devastating to the party itself. We were told that, depending on the pressure, things could change.
The message here was: don’t give up and continue to fight and protest if you want to keep your country.
The final meeting was in the Russell Senate Office Building with Troy Dougal, with the title of National Security Advisor for Senator John Curtis.
Troy feels tariffs are crazy. He listened and seemed to accept our opinions. He took notes. We gave him our list of points.
We met with Republican Congresspeople and consistently asked all of them to stand up to the Executive Branch and take their power back before it was gone and they could not get it back.
We would say we had a reasonable response from all offices except Mike Lee. Thune’s office deflected, but we could at least talk to her. Not the case with Mike Lee’s office.
However, nothing outstanding is happening from any of them today. The most noted comment was that it depends on how much pressure Congress gets from the people, and then they would push back if they had enough pressure put on them.
John Bleed got a junior aide to escort us to Mike Lee’s office. She got us a badge that allowed us to walk the buildings without being stopped. In walking the halls, we passed Senator Warnock’s office. Cathy had to stop in and say we love the Senator and that we donated to him even though we are not from Georgia. They gave us Georgia peanuts, and I said I would try and find a Billy Beer. That got a bunch of laughs. That was before these kids’ time.
We left Congress and Cathy needed to stop at the Capitol Gift Shop. We caught the Metro Blue Line and arrived at the hotel around 5:30.

4/5/2025 Day 3 Protest in DC
We are here. Later, they say there were over 100,000 in Washington. I also heard there were 1,300 protests in the nation and a total of 5.3 million people protested. I have no idea how you can count all these people, but that sure is a lot!
My niece, June, tells me they have a way to do those estimates accurately. One thing for sure is that there were a lot more than Trump’s inauguration!
We took the Metro and arrived at the Washington Monument at about 11:00 AM. We were lucky in going to the perfect location and ended up about fifty yards in the very front of the stage, with the Monument at our backs.
There were lots of speakers. So many that I would need to do research to list them all. They started with union representatives that are representing the government workers. They had stories about the effects of the cuts. There were five or six Representatives, and two Senators. All their speeches were moving. I remember Jamie Raskin and Al Green the most.
Al Green said he was putting a bill together to impeach Trump in the next 30 days. Raskin wasn’t quite that bold but said that we need to vote in 2026 and when the Democrats get the House, they will impeach Donald a third time. Boy, those comments got a lot of roar and applause.
I couldn’t paste the speeches here, but if you look on YouTube you can watch them live. I would recommend at least Raskin and Al Green’s speeches. It will be worth your time.
I learned that 285,000 government workers have been furloughed or forced to resign since Trump took office.
The goal is to get services to fail by reducing money and people. Get the government to close or privatize them, then to award them to private companies for a profit. The rich get richer.
It was a long time standing and your feet hurt. I was told there were restrooms, but I never saw any. We were lucky and must have been dehydrated because neither of us had to go to the bathroom the whole time. It ended at about 4:00. We caught the Metro and got back to the hotel about 5:30. We had some leftovers in the fridge and were so tired that we didn’t go out. Cathy was asleep by 9:00 PM, and I fell asleep about 10:00 PM.
We got about 15,000 steps on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

Day 4, April 6, 2025, Washington Protest
Yesterday we learned that 285,000 government workers have either been fired or taken severance offers since Trump has taken office. I thought about all the services they provided that were cut and the loss of those services to the average American citizens.
This morning, we listened to a local news station. We just got notice that our 2:00 PM plane is delayed until 3:00. There was a news editorial put on by the local TV station about the impact those job losses were having on the lives of locals. I'm guessing 225,000–250,000 of those 285,000 job losses are local. The local Washington area libraries are helping with classes in résumé writing, job searching, financial help, and of course, mental health for depression. They talked about places to go for discounted food and financial aid when you can't afford food and housing payments. They say 25% of the jobs lost were held by veterans. You think of all those families that live paycheck to paycheck and there was no job termination notice—you just got an email. You may have just gotten an excellent job review, even a raise. Too bad for you and your family. You may be faced with uprooting your family to find work. I think of all those families.
How anyone, regardless of political affiliation, would think this is right is beyond me. I have yet to hear how any of those cuts helped the American people or saved us money.
Billionaires couldn't care less and are paying $1,000,000 per person to have dinner with Donald in Miami. That was last (Friday) night.
Today, Monday, I watched Rachel Maddow taped from Friday night, and she had a point that when the four dead service members were flown home from Lithuania, they held a ceremony for them first and their President and thousands of Lithuanian people came out in support. They were flown to Dover Air Force Base. The President was busy and had to attend a million-dollar plate dinner at his country club, where a golf tournament took place.
Since service members were called suckers and losers… I’m not surprised. Of course, Trump said General Kelly just made that up.
I can't help but feel sad and angry.
Is this what Americans wanted when they voted? Is this the country I love?
People will die, and many will be hurt.
Then I ask what I can do about it?
We got back to Marathon about 10:45 last night.
Portugal next winter seems as though it could be a positive change. Of course, if we lose our 401(k), that too could force a change. If I had billions, it really wouldn't matter much.