A crowd of about 400 withstood the cold and windy weather gathered in front of the Washington Monument Saturday to voice their support for President Donald Trump in the March 4 Trump.

Other marches in solidarity took place around the country, including at Trump Towers in New York and at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump is currently visiting his estate.

His supporters gathered in the face of reports of historically low approval ratings a month and a half into Trump’s presidency, but many supporters said the ratings did not bother them. They held up signs that criticized the media, including calls to stop the spread of “fake news” and to investigate “Pizzagate,” the conspiracy theory that has placed a local pizza parlor in a whirlwind of child sex-trafficking rumors.

Riley Pearse, who came to the march from King George, Va., said she was skeptical of the polls from the mainstream news media.

“There are so many outlets targeting Trump. Everything is skewed,” Pearse said. “I don’t trust media until I can find outlets that tell me otherwise.”

Peter Boykin, president of Gays for Trump, organized the march and focused on assembling a line-up of speakers that represented diversity across Trump’s supporter base. A Mexican woman voiced her support for action against undocumented citizen and a gay couple held up a sign on stage that read “American first, Lesbian Second.”

Boykin encouraged the crowd to be their own journalists and fact check the news. He also spoke in support of right-wing speaker and former Breitbard editor Milo Yiannopoulos, who recently lost a book deal after making comments about pedophilia.

The keynote speaker and celebrity for the event was Joy Villa, a singer who made a splash at the Grammy Awards with a “Make America Great Again” dress. Villa led the crowd in singing “God Bless America” and talked about the need for the American people to unite.

“America is made of immigrants. Legal immigrants,” she said in her speech.

[gwh_image id=”1026862″ credit=”A woman poses with Joy Villa, who is best known for wearing a Make America Great Again dress to the Grammy’s, and her dressmaker Andre Soriano at the March 4 Trump. Meredith Roaten | Hatchet Photographer” align=”left” size=”1026862″][/gwh_image]

Villa added that at violence had been incited at some protests but she believed tolerance should be used instead.

“We don’t give power to the haters. We give power to the lovers, those who lift us up,” Villa said. “My message is about standing up for yourself, loving and empowerment.”

A small group of counter-protesters chanting “No KKK, no fascist USA, no Trump” were separated from the group by police officers.

GW adjunct economics professor Katherine Samolyk was among them, and said that the president has “only gotten worse” since his inauguration, where she also took part in protests.

“He’s compromised the integrity of the whole American political system,” Samolyk said.

She added that people on both sides were angry. and she didn’t see a point in trying to engage the Trump supporters.

“I don’t think you can convince somebody who is so diametrically opposed to your view,” she said. “The most important thing is that we peacefully assemble.”

While there were some activists on both sides that exchanged volleys of words, some Trump supporters said the counter-protesters had the right to be there even though they did not agree with their message.

Members of the GW College Republicans joined the group after marching to the White House, and said they found the march to be a great opportunity to “break out of the liberal D.C. bubble.”

Freshman Kyla Percival said she came to see the different groups of people that were in support of the president.

“I would hope that both sides of the political spectrum can respect each other and have productive discourse, so it doesn’t have to be at each other’s throats all the time,” Percival said.