{"id":1312107,"date":"2019-07-04T22:20:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-05T04:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/trump-asks-americans-to-stay-true-to-our-cause\/"},"modified":"2019-07-04T22:20:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-05T04:20:00","slug":"trump-asks-americans-to-stay-true-to-our-cause","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/trump-asks-americans-to-stay-true-to-our-cause\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump asks Americans to \u2018stay true to our cause\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Karen Pence and others stand as the US Army Band performs and the US Navy Blue Angels flyover at the end of an Independence Day celebration in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Thursday, July 4, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Alex Brandon)<\/strong>
AP | AP<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 President Donald Trump celebrated the story of America as \u201cthe greatest political journey in human history\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

As rain fell on him, Trump called on Americans to \u201cstay true to our cause\u201d during a program that adhered to patriotic themes and hailed an eclectic mix of history\u2019s heroes, from the armed forces, space, civil rights and other endeavors of American life.<\/p>\n

He largely stuck to his script, avoiding diversions into his agenda or re-election campaign. But in one exception, he vowed, \u201cVery soon, we will plant the American flag on Mars,\u201d actually a distant goal not likely to be achieved until late in the 2020s if even then.<\/p>\n

A late afternoon downpour drenched the capital\u2019s Independence Day crowds and Trump\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

By adding his own, one-hour \u201cSalute to America\u201d production to capital festivities that typically draw hundreds of thousands anyway, Trump became the first president in nearly seven decades to address a crowd at the National Mall on the Fourth of July.<\/p>\n

Protesters objecting to what they saw as his co-opting of the holiday inflated a roly-poly balloon depicting Trump as an angry, diaper-clad baby.<\/p>\n

Trump set aside a historic piece of real estate \u2014 a stretch of the Mall from the Lincoln Monument to the midpoint of the reflecting pool \u2014 for a mix of invited military members, Republican and Trump campaign donors and other bigwigs. It\u2019s where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his \u201cI have a dream\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

Aides 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. 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.<\/p>\n

Back at the White House, Trump tweeted an aerial photo showing an audience that filled both sides of the memorial\u2019s reflecting pool and stretched to the Washington Monument. \u201cA great crowd of tremendous Patriots this evening, all the way back to the Washington Monument!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t 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\u2019s regular activities along the Mall.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s event.<\/p>\n

In the shadow of the Washington Monument hours before Trump\u2019s speech, the anti-war organization Codepink erected a 20-foot tall \u201cTrump baby\u201d balloon to protest what activists saw as his intrusion in Independence Day and a focus on military might that they associate with martial regimes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think that he is making this about himself and it\u2019s really a campaign rally,\u201d said Medea Benjamin, the organization\u2019s co-director. \u201cWe think that he\u2019s a big baby. \u2026 He\u2019s erratic, he\u2019s prone to tantrums, he doesn\u2019t understand the consequences of his actions. And so this is a great symbol of how we feel about our president.\u201d<\/p>\n

The balloon remained tied down at the Mall because park officials restricted the group\u2019s permission to move it or fill it with helium, Benjamin said.<\/p>\n

Protesters also handed out small Trump-baby balloons on sticks. Molly King of La Porte, Indiana, a 13-year-old Trump supporter in sunglasses and a \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d hat, happily came away with one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re making a big stink about it but it\u2019s actually pretty cute,\u201d she said. \u201cI mean, why not love your president as you\u2019d love a baby?\u201d<\/p>\n

A small crowd gathered to take pictures with the big balloon, which drew Trump supporters and detractors.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though everybody has different opinions,\u201d said Kevin Malton, a Trump supporter from Middlesboro, Kentucky, \u201ceverybody\u2019s getting along.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Daniela Guray, a 19-year-old from Chicago who held a \u201cDump Trump\u201d sign, said she was subjected to a racial epithet while walking along the Constitution Avenue parade route and told to go home.<\/p>\n

She said she did not come to the Mall to protest but ended up doing so. \u201cI started seeing all the tanks with all the protests and that\u2019s when I said, \u2018Wait, this is not an actual Fourth of July,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cTrump is making it his day rather than the Fourth of July.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump had sounded a defensive note Wednesday, tweeting that the cost \u201cwill be very little compared to what it is worth.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Pete Buttigieg, one of the Democrats running for president, said, \u201cThis 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.\u201d Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is a Navy Reserve veteran who served in Afghanistan in 2014.<\/p>\n

Two groups, the National Parks Conservation Foundation and Democracy Forward, want the Interior Department\u2019s internal watchdog to investigate what they say may be a \u201cpotentially unlawful decision to divert\u201d national parks money to Trump\u2019s \u201cspectacle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump has longed for a public display of U.S. military prowess ever since he watched a two-hour procession of French military tanks and fighter jets in Paris on Bastille Day in July 2017.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Trump altered the lineup by adding his speech, moving the fireworks closer to the Lincoln Memorial and summoning the tanks and warplanes.<\/p>\n

Amid all the theatrics, Trump did pay tribute to the reason for the holiday \u2014 the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. \u201cWith a single sheet of parchment and 56 signatures,\u201d Trump said, \u201cAmerica began the greatest political journey in human history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

Associated Press writers Kali Robinson, Zeke Miller, Kevin Freking, Matthew Daly and Ellen Knickmeyer contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Karen Pence and others stand as the US Army Band performs and the US Navy Blue Angels flyover at the end of an Independence Day celebration in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Thursday, July 4, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Alex Brandon)AP | AP […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1312107","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-20 03:01:12","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1312107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1312107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1312107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1312107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1312107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}