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A few days before millions of his detractors held “No Kings” events in communities across the country, Donald Trump told reporters, “I hear very few people are going to be there, by the way.” From whom did the president “hear” this? He didn’t say....

We did, in fact, see. NBC News reported:

Crowds gathered Saturday in cities across the United States — and overseas — for No Kings rallies in protest of President Donald Trump’s administration and to call for the defense of First Amendment rights. Protesters from Los Angeles to New York — including in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Austin, Texas — flooded into streets chanting, marching and waving homemade signs, including some that proclaimed ‘We want all of the government to work’ and ‘Make America Good Again.’

According to organizers, roughly 7 million people participated in No Kings demonstrations, of which there were more than 2,700. It was, by any fair measure, one of the largest and most successful one-day domestic protests in modern American history......

What quickly became apparent, however, was that the president cared quite a bit. NBC News also reported:

President Donald Trump on Saturday posted an AI-generated video depicting him in a fighter jet dropping what appears to be feces on U.S. protesters. ... The video shows Trump dropping the apparent fecal matter on someone who looks like left-wing influencer Harry Sisson and other protesters gathered in an area that seems to be Times Square in New York City.

The AI-generated video was, of course, disgusting and a timely reminder of the incumbent president’s juvenile and classless tastes, but it was part of a series of online postings, including another video featuring Trump in a crown.....

The New York Times’ Jamelle Bouie noted in his latest column, “Nationwide protests with millions of people are a direct rebuke to the president’s narrative. They send a signal to the most disconnected parts of the American public that the president is far from as popular as he says he is, and they send a clear warning to those institutions under pressure from the administration: Bend the knee and lose our business and support.”

By all appearances, none of this was lost on Trump, whose over-the-top reaction to the “No Kings” events offered evidence of their success: They were intended to send a powerful message to an increasingly authoritarian figure, who appeared rattled by the national dispatch.