Protesters around country call for Trump to release tax returns

Tax marches across the US
Tax marches across the US

Protesters in cities across the country came out Saturday to call on President Trump to release his tax returns.

Demonstrators came out in large numbers in about 200 cities, including a few outside the U.S., according to organizers.

Images of tax protesters in cities including Washington D.C., Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and New York flooded social media.

Trump has said that Americans "don't care at all" about his tax returns, but polls show 74% of Americans say he should release them.

On Sunday, Trump questioned why people are still interested in his tax returns after the election.

The president also suggested the demonstrators were paid to march, something the Trump administration has accused its critics of doing in the past.

Ezra Levin, one of the Tax March organizers, blasted Trump's allegation as a "bogus and flat out false tweet" in a statement Sunday.

The protestors took to the streets, Levin said, "because we deserve to know who Donald Trump answers to -- the American taxpayers or his private business interests and Russia?"

Many lawmakers, including some Republicans, have called on Trump to make his tax returns public. And a petition demanding that Trump release his returns has garnered more than 1 million signatures.

Related: What we'd learn if Trump would just release his tax returns

For the past 40 years, every U.S. president and presidential candidate has released tax documents.

Still, the White House has not indicated Trump has any intentions of releasing his returns. So Trump critics are prepared to make some noise.

"We march to demand that the president release his returns, as he has repeatedly promised, but failed, to do," the Tax March website reads. "We march because it is in the best interest of the American people to know what financial entanglements and conflicts of interest our leaders have."

Much like the "Pussyhats" symbolized the Women's March in January, the hallmark of Saturday's protest were giant inflatable chickens.

tax march trump chicken
Organizers have nicknamed the march's symbol "Chicken Don."

On Saturday morning, chickens could be spotted on the steps of the Capitol building and outside the Trump Hotel. Thirty-foot inflatable chickens will also go up at the marches in New York City and San Francisco, according to Kevin Donohoe, a Tax March organizer.

The inflatable chickens were designed in Hong Kong to celebrate the Year of the Rooster, and they were purposely made to resemble Trump this year. Organizers for Tax March San Francisco discovered the chicken and re-dubbed it "Chicken Don" to poke fun at the President for being too afraid to release his tax returns. Since then it's spread across the country with dozens of marches purchasing chickens, Donohoe said.

Also on Saturday, a demonstration in Berkeley, California, that brought out supporters and opponents of President Trump turned violent, resulting in more than a dozen arrests, officials said.

That rally was about free speech, according to local news reports. A couple people were injured, Berkeley Police spokesman Byron White told CNN.

--CNN's Paul Murphy, Tony Marco and Shawn Nottingham and CNNMoney's Jeanne Sahadi contributed to this report

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