U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump watch fireworks during the celebration of the U.S. Army's 250th birthday on the National Mall on Saturday, in Washington.Pool/Getty Images
Atop a reviewing stand near the White House, Donald Trump marked a 79th birthday like no other. Tanks, rocket launchers and thousands of troops filed past the Commander-in-Chief Saturday evening in the major military parade of which he has long dreamed.
Meanwhile, in more than 2,000 cities and towns across the country, protesters gathered for the largest demonstrations against the U.S. President of his second term so far.
The split-screen marked a moment of personal triumph for Mr. Trump even as his critics accused him of authoritarianism and hoped to generate momentum to block his agenda.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans attended rallies across the country on Saturday (June 14) to protest President Donald Trump's aggressive approach in major cities. Kristy Kilburn reports.
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“We’re the hottest country in the world right now,” Mr. Trump declared in a speech to the assembled crowd, as he paid tribute to U.S. soldiers who, he said, “sent the devil himself flying in full retreat” and “poured out their blood by the bucketful.”
Tensions across the country were heightened in the days preceding the event by the President’s deployment of troops to Los Angeles to put down protests against his roundup of undocumented immigrants.
And the parade unfolded in the shadow of Israel’s attack on Iran, to which Tehran retaliated, and the assassination of a top state legislator in Minnesota.
Members of the U.S. Army participate in the parade.Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
The parade began early in a bid to beat expected rain later in the evening. Troops and military vehicles filed out from the Pentagon down Constitution Avenue and past the stand, where Mr. Trump sat behind bulletproof glass, flanked by First Lady Melania Trump, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and several other officials.
For most of the review, Mr. Trump leaned forward in his chair, sometimes getting up to his feet to salute. Classic rock numbers such as AC/DC’s Thunderstruck and Guns N’ Roses’s Sweet Child O’ Mine played as the troops moved past. Logos from the event’s sponsors – including Ultimate Fighting Championship, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, and data company Palantir – were projected onto the stand.
Analysis: The great theatre of Donald Trump’s U.S. military parade
Later in the evening, country music singers Lee Greenwood and Warren Zeiders wished Mr. Trump happy birthday, and the assembled crowd sang him Happy Birthday to You. Members of the army’s Golden Knights parachute team landed nearby and one presented Mr. Trump with a flag.
The President also swore in 250 new soldiers. “Have a great life!” he told them.
Members of the U.S. Army drive a Paladin self-propelled howitzer in the 250th anniversary parade.Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Attendance was difficult to gauge: while there were lengthy lineups to enter the viewing zone on the National Mall, some bleachers set up along the route appeared to be largely empty during the parade.
In total, the event featured more than 6,000 soldiers, 128 armoured fighting vehicles and artillery pieces, 40 helicopters, six HIMARS rocket launchers, missiles and robot dogs. Each military unit included troops in period costumes representing the U.S.’s historic wars.
Organizers chose an evening start for the parade to spare troops marching in the 27C heat of a humid Washington June.
Like much of Mr. Trump’s second term, the event fulfilled an ambition thwarted during his first mandate. The President was deeply impressed by a Bastille Day military parade during a state visit to Paris in 2017 and determined to surpass it. But he had to scrap plans in 2018 over cost concerns.
This time around, the President finally made his dream come true by building off an existing celebration. The U.S. Army was already planning public events to mark its 250th anniversary, which Mr. Trump ordered expanded. The military estimated the event would cost US$45-million, plus US$16-million more to repair damage from tank treads to city streets.
A Paladin self-propelled howitzer passes the parade.Kevin Mohatt/Reuters
Earlier in the day, protesters flooded streets, parks and squares from major cities to suburbs to small towns.
At the flagship event in Philadelphia, organized by an umbrella group called No Kings, protesters filled the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and heard from Martin Luther King III, the son of the civil-rights activist.
In Los Angeles, 20,000 people gathered outside City Hall with an enormous copy of the U.S. Constitution. As the protest went on, police fired tear gas and advanced on horseback. In San Francisco, protesters on Ocean Beach formed themselves into a human banner reading “NO KINGS!”
In Boston, demonstrators joined in with a Pride Parade, carrying signs that read “No kings but drag kings” and “No Kings, but Yaaas Queen!”
“We don’t put up with kings or people who use force to protect their own power because they’re insecure and incompetent,” said Liam Kent of the Blue Anchor Project, one of the organizing groups, as he attended the Boston protest. “We fought a war against a king 250 years ago and we won that and we don’t want our country to go back.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called for protesters to stay away from demonstrations after police found papers with “no kings” written on them in the car of the man suspected in the shootings of two Democratic legislators.
A few thousand people showed up at the state capitol in St. Paul anyway.
Other cities with large protests included Dallas, where more than 10,000 were estimated to have turned out, Atlanta and Houston.
In Madison, Wisc., Women’s March held a circus-themed demonstration titled Kick Out the Clowns. “It really is about laying bare the absurdity of the administration,” said Rachel O’Leary Carmona, the group’s executive director.
She described the deployment of troops to Los Angeles and the military parade as manifestations of “a Trump that feels threatened” and said the event in Washington is about shoring up “his fragile ego.”
Neither No Kings nor Women’s March planned a protest for Washington, but this did not stop a few hundred people from marching to the White House anyway, while other scattered groups demonstrated around the periphery of the parade.
Eric White, a 55-year-old designer, held a sign referencing an episode in Mr. Trump’s first term during which he reportedly told his then-chief of staff that Americans soldiers who died in war were “suckers” and “losers” for getting killed.
“Now, he’s using them as pawns to put on a show of strength to compete with Putin, Kim, Xi and other dictators,” Mr. White said.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks from the Ellipse in Washington on Saturday.MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images
Mr. Trump himself tried to dissuade protesters earlier in the week, warning that “they will be met with very big force” if they tried to demonstrate in Washington. As it was, the day passed without any evident problem.
The Trump supporters who gathered to celebrate largely dismissed accusations that Mr. Trump was misusing state power.
“There is looting and violence going on, it’s becoming lawless,” said Jordan Yoder, a 24-year-old engineer from Baltimore, of the situation in Los Angeles. “It’s a conflict between the illegal immigrants and the people protecting this country.”
Chelsea Irwin, a 32 year-old retail manager, pointed to Bastille Day as a precedent for a democratic country to hold this sort of event. “It’s ridiculous,” she said of the criticism. “It’s a direct slap in the face to anyone in the military, current or past.”
Still, Ms. Irwin said the Trump administration might be casting too wide a net in deporting immigrants, particularly in the restaurant industry, where her husband works. “There are some immigrants really putting in their time and being good people. We do need to get rid of criminals, but we need our farm workers, we need our restaurant workers,” she said.
Her mother, Karen Goerndt, agreed that workplace raids by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement were “too heavy-handed,” but said she was happy both with Mr. Trump’s trade war and his decision to send National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles.
“Everything he’s doing is for the American people and you’ll go through a lot of pain to get there, especially with the tariffs, but everything will even out and the jobs will start coming back to America,” said Ms. Goerndt, 63, a notary from Denver, North Carolina.
A supporter of Mr. Trump’s since 2016, she said she protested outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and believes the 2020 election was rigged against Mr. Trump.
Members of the U.S. Army and armored vehicles move across the Memorial Bridge during the army's 250th anniversary parade.ANNABELLE GORDON/AFP/Getty Images
Mr. Trump’s parade plan drew fire from the start, but the criticism intensified after he sent troops to Los Angeles, and following another incident this week in which Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s bodyguards dragged away Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla when he interrupted her press conference.
California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff branded the extravaganza a “dictator-style military parade.” Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky told reporters he had “never been a big fan of goose-stepping soldiers and big tanks and missiles rolling down the street” and that it broke with U.S. precedent. “We were always different than the images you saw in the Soviet Union and North Korea.”
The event certainly is unprecedented: historically, the U.S. has only held major military parades in Washington mark the end of a war – or the start of one, as when then-president James Madison reviewed troops on Pennsylvania Avenue in 1812 shortly before launching several failed invasions of Canada. The most recent was in 1991 after the Persian Gulf War.