Demonstrators across the United States planned to take to the streets for a fifth straight day on Sunday to protest President-elect Donald Trump, whose campaign manager said President Barack Obama and Democrat Hillary Clinton should support a peaceful transition. Protests were scheduled for Sunday afternoon in New York City and Oakland, California, according to online announcements. Thousands in several cities have demonstrated since the results from Tuesday's election showed Trump lost the popular tally but gained enough votes in the 538-person Electoral College to win the presidency, surprising the world. Largely peaceful demonstrators have decried Trump's campaign promises to restrict immigration and register Muslims, as well as allegations the former reality-TV star sexually abused women. Dozens have been arrested and a handful of police injured. Chanting "Not my president" and "love trumps hate," people marched in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and elsewhere on Saturday, saying Trump threatens their civil and human rights. Civil rights groups have monitored violence against U.S. minorities since Trump's win, citing reports of attacks on women in Islamic head scarves, of racist graffiti and of bullying of immigrant children. They have called on Trump to denounce the attacks.
Kellyanne Conway, Trump's campaign manager, said on Fox News on Sunday that she was sure many of the protesters were paid professionals, though she offered no proof. Suggesting a double standard, Conway said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that if Clinton had won and Trump supporters had protested, "people would be freaking out that his supporters were not accepting election results." "It's time really for President Obama and Secretary Clinton to say to these protesters, 'This man is our president,'" she said on NBC. Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan told CNN on Sunday that protests are protected by the First Amendment as long as they are peaceful. Neither Obama nor Clinton has called for an end to the protests. Obama told Trump at the White House on Thursday that he was going to help Trump succeed, "because if you succeed, then the country succeeds." Clinton told supporters at a New York hotel on Wednesday: "Donald Trump is going to be our president. We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead." Organizers of the weekend protests said they wanted to build on momentum after several nights of unrest triggered by the real-estate mogul's surprise win. Police in Portland, Oregon, where a protester was shot but not seriously injured early on Saturday, said they arrested more than 20 people late Saturday after protesters tossed burning flares and bottles at them and refused orders to disperse. In New York on Saturday, several thousand protesters marched peacefully up Fifth Avenue before filling the streets at the foot of Trump Tower, the president-elect's skyscraper home. Some in Los Angeles waved American, Mexican or rainbow flags. Holding a "Keep Love Legal" sign, 25-year-old gay resident Alex Seedman called Trump a fascist and feared he would repeal marriage equality. Trump, a Republican, sparred on Sunday with one of the nation's largest newspapers, attacking the New York Times for coverage that he said was "very poor and highly inaccurate." "The @nytimes sent a letter to their subscribers apologizing for their BAD coverage of me. I wonder if it will change - doubt it?" Trump wrote on Twitter. The newspaper published a letter in Sunday's editions from publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Dean Baquet, not apologizing, but thanking readers for their loyalty and asking how news outlets underestimated Trump's support. The Times plans to "hold power to account, impartially and unflinchingly" during the Trump presidency, they wrote.
