WASHINGTON (AP) — US President Donald Trump celebrated the story of America as “the greatest political journey in human history” in a Fourth of July commemoration before a soggy but cheering crowd of spectators, many of them invited, on the grounds of the Lincoln Memorial. Supporters welcomed his tribute to the U.S. military while protesters assailed him for putting himself center stage on a holiday devoted to unity.
As rain fell on him, Trump called on Americans to “stay true to our cause” during a program that adhered to patriotic themes and hailed a mix of history’s heroes, from the armed forces, space, civil rights and other endeavors of American life.
In his speech, Trump avoided diversions into his agenda or reelection campaign . But in one exception, he vowed, “Very soon, we will plant the American flag on Mars,” actually a distant goal not likely to be achieved until late in the 2020s if even then.
A late afternoon downpour drenched the capital’s Independence Day crowds, and Trump’s speech unfolded in occasional rain. The warplanes and presidential aircraft he had summoned conducted their flyovers as planned, capped by the Navy Blue Angels aerobatics team.
U.S. military warplanes and presidential aircraft conducted flyovers as planned during President Donald Trump’s speech in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, capped by the Navy Blue Angels aerobatics team. (July 5)
By adding his own one-hour “Salute to America” production to capital festivities that typically draw hundreds of thousands of people anyway, Trump became the first president in nearly seven decades to address a crowd at the National Mall on the Fourth of July.
Trump set aside a historic piece of real estate — a stretch of the Mall from the Lincoln Monument to the midpoint of the reflecting pool — for a mix of invited military members, Republican and Trump campaign donors and other bigwigs. It’s where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I have a dream” speech, Barack Obama and Trump held inaugural concerts and protesters swarmed into the water when supporters of Richard Nixon put on a July 4, 1970, celebration, with the president sending taped remarks from California.
Back at the White House, Trump tweeted an aerial photo showing an audience that filled both sides of the memorial’s reflecting pool and stretched to the Washington Monument.
“A great crowd of tremendous Patriots this evening, all the way back to the Washington Monument!” he said.
Many who filed into the sprawling VIP section said they got their free tickets from members of Congress or from friends or neighbors who couldn’t use theirs. Outside that zone, a diverse mix of visitors, locals, veterans, tour groups, immigrant families and more milled about, some drawn by Trump, some by curiosity, some by the holiday’s regular activities along the Mall.
Trump had sounded a defensive note Wednesday, tweeting that the cost “will be very little compared to what it is worth.” But he glossed over a host of expenses associated with the display of military might, including flying in planes and tanks and other vehicles to Washington by rail.
Not since 1951, when President Harry Truman spoke before a large gathering on the Washington Monument grounds to mark the 175th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, has a commander in chief made an Independence Day speech to a sizable crowd on the Mall.
Pete Buttigieg, one of the Democrats running for president , said, “This business of diverting money and military assets to use them as a kind of prop, to prop up a presidential ego, is not reflecting well on our country.” Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is a Navy Reserve veteran who served in Afghanistan in 2014.
Trump has longed for a public display of U.S. military prowess since he watched a two-hour procession of French military tanks and fighter jets in Paris on Bastille Day in July 2017 .
Washington has held an Independence Day celebration for decades, featuring a parade along Constitution Avenue, a concert on the Capitol lawn with music by the National Symphony Orchestra and fireworks beginning at dusk near the Washington Monument.
Trump altered the lineup by adding his speech, moving the fireworks closer to the Lincoln Memorial and summoning the tanks and warplanes.
Amid all the theatrics, Trump did pay tribute to the reason for the holiday: the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
“With a single sheet of parchment and 56 signatures,” Trump said, “America began the greatest political journey in human history.”
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Newsroom | theworldmail.co.uk
Source/Contribution/Photo Credit by Associated Press