President vows ‘we will vanquish the virus’
BALTIMORE — President Donald Trump honored America’s fallen service members Monday as he commemorated Memorial Day in back-to-back appearances amid a coronavirus outbreak soon to claim its 100,000th life in the U.S.
“Together we will vanquish the virus, and America will rise from this crisis to new and even greater heights,” Trump said during a ceremony at the historic Fort McHenry. “No obstacle, no challenge and no threat is a match for the sheer determination of the American people.”
Earlier, Trump silently honored the nation’s war dead at a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, which like Fort McHenry is off-limits to the public because of the pandemic. Presidents on Memorial Day typically lay a wreath and speak at the hallowed burial ground in Virginia. But the coronavirus crisis made this year different.
Many attendees arrived wearing masks but removed them for the outdoor ceremony in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Trump, maskless as always in public, gave no remarks. He approached a wreath already in place, touching it and giving a salute.
Trump then traveled to Baltimore, to the chagrin of the city’s mayor, and noted that tens of thousands of service members and national guard personnel are “on the front lines of our war against this terrible virus.”
The U.S. leads the world with more than 1.6 million confirmed coronavirus cases and more than 98,000 deaths.
Trump said brave warriors from the nation’s past have shown that “in America, we are the captains of our own fate.”
The Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine is where a poem, written after a huge American flag was hoisted to celebrate an important victory over the British during the War of 1812, became “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Mayor Jack Young objected to Trump’s visit, saying it sent the wrong message about stay-at-home directives and that the city couldn’t afford the added cost of hosting him when it’s losing $20 million a month because of the pandemic.
But Trump is intent on accelerating his schedule as he portrays the country as returning to its pre-pandemic ways.