USA TODAY International Edition
Trump’s Fourth of July event will include tanks
Dems, DC City Council strongly oppose plans
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump is implementing a lot of changes to the Fourth of July celebration on the National Mall, which has mostly consisted of fireworks and music, by adding a presidential address and some military pomp to the mix.
Trump said that as part of his planned display of military might, “we’re gonna have some tanks stationed outside” during his “Salute to America.” That addition has generated some strong reaction from critics, including from the Washington City Council, which reacted to the idea by tweeting, “Tanks, but no tanks.”
No official announcement has been made about how many tanks there will be or what kind will be on display. News photographers captured images of at least two M1A1 Abrams tanks and two Bradley Fighting Vehicles on flatcars under military guard in a rail yard in southeast Washington.
The tanks will be on “static display” and will not be part of a parade.
“You’ve got to be pretty careful with the tanks because the roads have a tendency not to like to carry heavy tanks,” Trump explained Monday. “So we have to put them in certain areas.”
In its tweet objecting to the tanks, the D.C. City Council included an image of a letter in 2018 from the Department of Defense that said “no tanks” could be used in a military parade because “consideration must be given to minimize damage to local infrastructure.”
The Washington Post reported that engineers are studying whether the tanks could damage the underground rooms that are part of the Lincoln Memorial, even if they remain stationary.
Trump’s critics objected to the addition of tanks to the Fourth of July celebration because of the cost and the militaristic message they said it sends.
“When I was a child, we saw pictures of military parades in the Soviet Union,” tweeted Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson. “We were told we don’t do that, that we’re proud of the fact that we don’t do that because we don’t wish to be a militarized society. Celebrating July 4 with army tanks on the National Mall is repugnant.”
NBC News’ chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell said it was “so beyond the spirit of the holiday.”
“Autocrats show off their military weapons to compensate for their inferiority,” Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif, said on Twitter. “Above all else, this is a waste of $$$.”