Trump: Parade out after costs inflated

WASHINGTON » President Donald Trump’s grand vision for a military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue collapsed Friday, as he backed off plans to stage a costly event this fall that was never enthusiastically embraced by the Pentagon or leaders of the city expected to host the spectacle.

In a series of tweets, Trump blamed local officials in Washington, alleging without evidence that they had inflated the cost to the city of a display of America’s armed forces that had been inspired by Trump’s visit last year to a Bastille Day parade in Paris.

“The local politicians who run Washington, D.C. (poorly) know a windfall when they see it,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “When asked to give us a price for holding a great celebratory military parade, they wanted a number so ridiculously high that I cancelled it.”

Trump said it was possible the parade could be put on next year if the cost “comes WAY DOWN” and added that with the savings “we can buy some more jet fighters!”

He said he would go to a parade in Paris to mark Armistice Day on Nov. 11 and also attend a “big parade” at Joint Base Andrews.

His tweets were a confirmation of what the Pentagon had signaled a day before: that the planned Nov. 10 event would be postponed amid questions about its escalating costs, which were estimated to reach as high as $92 million.

Trump has been pushing for a parade publicly and privately since he visited Paris in July 2017 and was deeply impressed by the Bastille Day celebration he attended as a guest of French President Emmanuel Macron. Military units were in the event.