![]() ![]() ![]() Molly King of La Porte, Indiana, a 13-year-old Trump supporter in sunglasses and a “Make America Great Again” hat, happily came away with one. Protesters also handed out small Trump-baby balloons on sticks. The balloon remained tied down at the Mall because park officials restricted the group’s permission to move it or fill it with helium, Benjamin said. And so this is a great symbol of how we feel about our president.” … He’s erratic, he’s prone to tantrums, he doesn’t understand the consequences of his actions. “We think that he is making this about himself and it’s really a campaign rally,” said Medea Benjamin, the organization’s co-director. In the shadow of the Washington Monument hours before Trump’s speech, the anti-war organization Codepink erected a 20-foot tall “Trump baby” balloon to protest what activists saw as his intrusion in Independence Day and a focus on military might that they associate with martial regimes. Protesters earlier made their voices heard in sweltering heat by the Washington Monument, along the traditional parade route and elsewhere, while the VIP section at the reflecting pool served as something of a buffer for Trump’s event. 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. 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. “A great crowd of tremendous Patriots this evening, all the way back to the Washington Monument!” he said. ![]() Aides scrambled in recent days to distribute tickets and mobilize the Trump and GOP social media accounts to encourage participation for an event hastily arranged and surrounded with confusion.īack 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. 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.Īides to the crowd-obsessed Trump fretted about the prospect of empty seats at his event, said a person familiar with the planning who was not authorized to be identified. Trump shook hands with some military officials and waved before he left the stage.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. Then, the military band played a formal rendition Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to Be an American” – one of the President’s favorites - while one more Navy Blue Angel plane flew overhead. We are one people chasing one dream and one magnificent destiny.” The future belongs to the brave, the strong, the proud and the free. In his conclusion, he struck a tone of unity, saying, “We will never forget that we are Americans and the future belongs to us. His remarks were filled with historical references - from Thomas Jefferson to George Washington to Abraham Lincoln, and later, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, the Wright Brothers, and Clara Barton. He recognized each branch of the military at the beginning of his speech: “The Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marines, and, very soon, the Space Force.” (On a related note, Trump also vowed to soon “plant the American flag on Mars.”) “Our nation is stronger today than it ever was before. ![]()
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