The celebration of the 250th anniversary of America’s independence was marked with the pomp and outsize circumstance that President Trump promised, and throughout it he paid homage to the person he cast as an embodiment of patriotism: himself.
Mr. Trump capped off the weekslong celebration with a speech on Saturday night on the National Mall, where he praised those who founded the country and shed blood fighting for it. But as he had in virtually every other commemoration speech, he couldn’t help but dwell on his own battles and portray the state of the union as stronger than ever under his leadership.
“Unlike so many others in the world, in this country we have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equal justice under the law — although I wasn’t treated that well,” Mr. Trump said. “But we won’t get into that.”
“We had the American dream,” he added. “We never had the American dream, however, like we have it right now.”
The sky is actually falling at the Great American State Fair.
The stage for Freedom 250’s July Fourth celebration fell apart during rehearsals Thursday, with a large component of the structure’s ceiling falling roughly two stories down and landing behind a group of dancers and musicians. Miraculously, no one appeared injured.
Online commenters were quick to flame the stage’s apparently dangerous construction.
“That’s what happens when you don’t consider merit in hiring,” wrote one X user.
“This is why you never let Trump select the subcontractor based on percentage of kickback,” commented another.
If Donald Trump’s address on 3 July from Mount Rushmore will be remembered at all, it will be because that was the day of competing speeches, and competing visions, of the United States. Earlier on 3 July, the New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, delivered a speech that was about half as long as Trump’s 28-minute address, but one that offered a far different assessment of the challenges facing his city and our nation.
“We see a city of contradictions within a nation of contradictions,” Mamdani said, while seated at George Washington’s desk and flanked by newly naturalized American citizens. “We see the wealthiest country in the history of the world – one where children go to sleep hungry while the world’s first trillionaire hungers for more.”
Mamdani’s speech was rich with historical references, beginning with his mention of the Lenape people who lived on the land of what we now call New York City before the Europeans arrived. (As far as I know, Trump never mentions the Indigenous nations of this land.) Mamdani’s address made a (too) brief nod to American chattel slavery, before celebrating American immigration, noting: “Irish immigrants [who] arrived with stomachs aching from a famine manufactured by imperial cruelty” along with “Jewish people escaping pogroms”.
[. . .]
The latter half of Trump’s 3 July address and parts of his 4 July address were basically a stump speech for Republicans, as they face a tough midterm election season ahead.
Trump, clearly rattled by the success of the left wing of the Democratic party in New York and across the country, has decided to return to the 1950s. He is now brazenly resurrecting cold war rhetoric, repeatedly labeling his opponents “godless communists”, as he did on Friday.
Trump delivered yet another speech on 4 July and in Washington DC. This address, besides being almost rained out, felt more like a strange mix of a State of the Union Address and a 1970’s game show, as Trump kept wheeling out old flags and centenarian veterans onto his stage as if they were all up for auction. Human and non-human props aside, his actual 4 July lecture offered, perhaps surprisingly, less substance than the one he had given the day before.
[. . .]
Trump’s hubris is legendary (he has suggested he wants his face on Mount Rushmore), and he obsessively repeats, as he did in this speech, that the United States was “laughed at, mocked”, and seen as a “nation in decline” just two years ago. “And today,” Trump says, “We are the hottest country anywhere in the world. Everybody respects us like no nation.”
But the polling doesn’t bear any of this out. The Pew Research Center recently found sharp declines in US favorability around the globe. And what I imagine must really upset the president is that democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani polls at a significantly higher approval rating (48%) than Donald Trump does (39%).
He can't stop embarrassing himself. He is a joke and he is a damn dirty shame on this nation. His lies never stop. A very small group of people showed up for his 4th of July speech. But Chump has to lie about that as well. Jennifer Bowers Bahney (MEDIAITE) explains:
On Sunday, President Donald Trump revised his initial claim that 375,000 people gathered for the America 250 celebration on the National Mall before the crowd was forced to evacuate due to weather.
“We’re here, we’re here, we’re here. There’s no way we can be deterred. They estimated they had 375,000 people before everybody had to leave and they now have 150,000 people. It’s the craziest thing anyone’s ever seen,” Trump said during his speech that began after 11 p.m. Saturday.
Trump revised that number upward on Truth Social Sunday afternoon.
“The Crowd at 7:05 in the evening was 422,000 people! All were forced to leave because of the weather, the event was cancelled, and everyone was gone because of lightning,” Trump wrote.
[. . .]
Newsweek reported, “there is no independent evidence confirming the president’s figures,” adding that even if his initial figures were correct, “the crowd would have still been smaller than the one gathered for the Bicentennial in 1976, which The New York Times at the time reported being 500,000-people strong during the traditional parade only, mentioning official estimates.”
He lies constantly. And expects others to lie for him and protect him. Sean James (MEDIAITE) notes that Chuck Todd's not going to lie for him:
Chuck Todd accused President Donald Trump of hijacking America’s 250th birthday bash and making it all about himself, with the former Meet the Press moderator saying he felt “betrayed” as an American by Trump’s Fourth of July speech and other recent events.
He went off on the president in a new video on his Chuck ToddCast show on Sunday.
“Donald Trump has ruined the American brand and the American birthday celebration,” Todd whined.
Todd said the country had a bipartisan, congressionally-approved America 250 effort that had been brewing for years. He said it may have led to a celebration that was a “little bland” and a “bit hokey,” but that it would have done a pretty good job overall of honoring the USA.
But he said Trump sabotaged those plans. Todd pointed to the UFC “Freedom 250” fights at the White House last month as one of the main ways he debased the nation’s big birthday.
Kathleen Culliton (RAW STORY) notes:
The Daily Beast analysis of Trump’s July 4 fireworks display found a community in an uproar and an 80-year-old president in apparent denial.
[. . .]
When Trump finally took the stage at 11.15 p.m., more than an hour later than planned, he delivered a rambling speech against “communists” and misquoted the Declaration of Independence.
The 850,000 shell-firework display began about midnight and was marred by dense smoke, according to the Daily Beast.
As hot and tired crowds squinted through the haze for the 40-minute display, Trump sat in a private, sheltered chamber, the Daily Beast reported.
“Television cameras appeared to catch Trump sitting motionless,” the Daily Beast reported, “as though he had fallen asleep.”
The next day, DC air was toxic as a result of the fireworks. DC issued a Code Red over the air today at one point. Ryan Miller and Taylor Edwards (DC's NBC 4) note:
As of Sunday morning, Storm Team4 Meteorologist Ryan Miller says D.C. and parts of Prince George's County are under a Code Red.
"We have unhealthy air quality, Code Red, right now. The forecast for this afternoon’s air quality is Code Purple, very unhealthy," Miller said.
A Code Red means the air quality is unhealthy and certain groups of people could experience some serious health effects and the general public could experience some health effects.
That was Chump's gift to DC -- pollution. Emily Mae Czachor (CBS NEWS) reports:
People in and around Washington, D.C., are experiencing a substantial dip in air quality on Sunday, with officials warning that any amount of exposure to the outdoors could potentially come with health consequences. Researchers connected the shift in pollution levels to massive fireworks displays held to celebrate July 4th on Saturday night.
A "purple" air quality alert was issued for the nation's capital and parts of northern Virginia by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, a nonprofit organization that brings together local leaders in the region.
That distinction corresponds with "very unhealthy" air, accompanying warnings against all outdoor physical activity for people in sensitive groups and prolonged outdoor physical activity for everyone else. Sensitive groups include people with heart or lung diseases, older adults, pregnant people, children and teenagers, outdoor workers, and others who may suffer undue health impacts from the currently harsh environment.
Meanwhile the failure that is Chump pronounces himself a winner of Monopoly after he stole all the money and the hotels and houses to rig the game for himself. Yes, we're talking about Chump's corruption that netted him over 2,000,000,000.00 dollars last year alone. Last Thursday, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent declared to CBS' Kelly O'Grady, "I don't think there's an appearance problem." He is wrong, so wrong. Ryan Mancini (THE HILL) reports:
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) on Sunday said there “is something wrong” with President Trump making $1 billion in cryptocurrency.
“I do have an issue with some of the ways that we’ve now seen how we deal with cryptocurrency,” Moore said on “Fox News Sunday” with host Shannon Bream. “The President of the United States has made more money on crypto than crypto companies in the past year.”
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC “THIS WEEK” ANCHOR: Two hundred and fifty years later, that system is under stress, tested by a president determined to wield power and buck norms in a way his predecessors did not. Perhaps most brazenly, this week, President Trump’s financial disclosure forms revealed that he collected more than $2 billion in revenues during the first year of his second term from investments in some industries he regulates, fueled in part by payments from foreign powers and a steady steam of -- stream of stock trading, including stakes in companies he promotes.
The president and his team insists this is not a conflict of interest. Democratic critics and many ethical experts disagree. One thing is certain, no other American president has ever acted this way or amassed money like this while holding the supreme office of public trust.
Jay O’Brien starts us off.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAY O'BRIEN, CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): This week, the money Donald Trump has made since returning to the White House coming into clearer focus, staggering profits unprecedented for an American president. New, mandatory financial disclosure forms, released by the Office of Government Ethics, show Trump reported making at least $2.2 billion last year, triple what he earned in 2024, before the start of his second term.
MEGAN GORMAN, TAX ATTORNEY & AUTHOR, 'ALL THE PRESIDENTS; MONEY': What we’ve not seen is someone who is proactively growing their wealth while president.
O’BRIEN (voice over): Money making on an historic scale, says Megan Gorman, who chronicled presidential wealth in her book “All the President’s Money.”
O’BRIEN: Have you ever seen a president make money on this scale while in the White House?
GORMAN: I’ve never seen a situation where someone has been proactive like this.
O’BRIEN (voice over): Trump pointing to the stock market to explain his gains.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don’t get involved in my personal. We have funds that run my money.
REPORTER: To critics who say you’re profiting off the presidency. Mr. President.
TRUMP: Well, you know why I’m profiting? Because the stock market’s going up. Everybody’s profiting.
O’BRIEN (voice over): But the more than 900 pages show a Trump family business empire that’s expanded alongside the president’s time in office, extending from real estate holdings, to merchandise, to the biggest recent profit driver, cryptocurrency. Trump raking in upwards of $1.4 billion from crypto ventures alone last year. According to the documents, more than 630 million in profits came via the president’s meme coin, the sales of which generate revenue for Trump and his family, even as the value of the coin itself has plummeted from a high of $74, just before Trump was inaugurated, to trading under $2 today. An analysis found that nearly a million people who have invested in Trump’s meme coin lost a combined $3.8 billion.
TIM MASSAD, HARBARD KENNEDY SCHOOL FELLOW & FORMER CFTC CHAIR: Investors who bought the coin, many of them have suffered losses. Think of it like a baseball card. I
think a lot of people bought it who may simply like the present, wanted to support the president. I think there are others who bought it to try to buy influence.
O'BRIEN (voice over): The other big dollar crypto profits coming from World Liberty Financial, a firm founded by Trump’s family and that of his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, which the disclosures show earned Trump well north of $500 million last year. World Liberty Financial has brokered a series of controversial overseas deals, including accepting a half a billion dollar investment just days before Trump’s second inauguration from Shaykh Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who heads the United Arab Emirates’ state investment fund and serves as national security advisor. Months later, the Trump administration approved something the Sheikh and others in the UAE had long coveted, the sale of hundreds of thousands of cutting-edge American artificial intelligence chips. A spokesman for World Liberty Financial later telling ABC News, quote, “any claim that this deal had anything to do with the administration’s actions on chips is 100 percent false.
But through that deal, in a flurry of branded real estate projects, Trump made roughly $300 million from the Middle East alone according to the disclosures, more than any other region in the world. And the president’s crypto profits coming as the industry itself has teetered. Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, losing over half of its value since last October.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We’re going to be the undisputed crypto capital and bitcoin superpower of the world.
O’BRIEN (voice over): At the same time, his family crypto business is flourished, Trump, who once said bitcoin, quote, “seems like a scam,” now promising to be the most crypto friendly president in history, rolling back enforcement of the industry, something crypto advocates argued was necessary to prevent overregulation.
O’BRIEN: As someone who was intimately involved in this kind of enforcement, what do you make of a president personally profiting off of an industry that he also has his administration regulating?
MASSAD: I think it’s absolutely reprehensible. We’ve never seen a president do anything like this, to my knowledge.
O’BRIEN (voice over): In a statement, White House Spokesperson Anna Kelly saying, “neither the president, nor his family, has ever engaged or will ever engage in conflicts of interest.” And the White House repeatedly insisting the president only acts in the best interest of the American people, and pointing out that President Trump’s assets are in a trust, but not a traditional blind trust run by a third party. Instead, one managed by his children.
TRUMP: Well, I don’t do anything having to do with my business. My kids run it. My son, Eric, handles it. I don’t talk to him about things such as this.
O’BRIEN (voice over): Trump’s sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., have invested in a flurry of ventures that could also have business before their father’s administration, from military drones, to Donald Trump Jr.’s investment in a company seeking to sell guns through the mail, to mining. Both of Trump’s sons have repeatedly disputed their father is involved in any of their business dealings. Donald Trump Jr. saying this at a summit in Saudi Arabia last year.
DONALD TRUMP JR., TRUMP ORGANIZATION EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT: We understand we’re outside of government, obviously, but over the last ten years we’ve been embroiled in it. We’ve been in that fight. We understand what the administration wants to do because we helped craft some of that messaging. So, we can be on the outside but still have that understanding of what they plan to do. And that’s logical.
O’BRIEN (voice over): The new financial disclosures also shedding light on the stock trades made by the president’s financial advisors on his behalf. More than 21,000 last year, earning Trump a stake in some 1,600 companies, many of which are directly involved in deals tied to the administration.
On April 8th of last year, over 300 trades of various securities made on Trump’s behalf, just a day before he announced a surprise pause on the sweeping tariffs he had unveiled a week earlier. Trump has said he’s not directly involved in trades made on his behalf. All of the documents made public just as the president took his new Air Force One for its inaugural flight this week, a $400 million gift from Qatar, which some legal experts and Democrats charge could violate the Constitution’s prohibition on federal officials taking gifts from foreign countries.
White House staffers posting pictures inside, showing off the plane’s large rooms. To serve as the president’s personal aircraft, the jet also retrofitted by the Pentagon, estimated to cost hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.
TRUMP: It will cost very little relative to what it would cost if we did it a different way.
O’BRIEN (voice over): And while Trump has called the plane a gift for the country, the jet is subject to a highly unusual arrangement that will transfer its ownership to Trump’s presidential library, not to the next commander in chief, when he leaves office.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O’BRIEN (on camera): And, George, while the president and vice president aren’t subject to the same ethics laws as other members of the administration or even members of Congress, Democrats are promising that if they take back the House come November, they’ll use the power of the legislative branch to investigate President Trump’s family business dealings and hold him accountable if necessary.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Alex Padilla:
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) joined Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), U.S. Senators Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and the entire Senate Democratic caucus in demanding Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought immediately rescind OMB’s proposed regulation on federal financial assistance. The Senators warned the proposal exceeds OMB’s statutory authority, undermines Congress’ constitutional power of the purse, and would give the President sweeping new authority to weaponize federal grants for political purposes.
“Your proposal exceeds OMB’s authority, will make it impossible for grant recipients to faithfully carry out the funding priorities that Congress establishes in statute, and would turn federal grants into a new cudgel for the President to unilaterally advance his partisan agenda and punish political rivals,” wrote the Senators. “Ultimately, these changes will make it harder for grant recipients to apply for and manage federal funds – undermining public safety, public health, economic competitiveness, and the government’s ability to address rising costs.”
The proposed rule would dramatically expand agencies’ authority to terminate or suspend federal grants at any time and without notice. It would also require political appointees to make funding decisions without deferring to expert peer review.
“Rather than focusing on fulfilling the statutory purposes of a grant program, applicants and recipients will be forced to play an endless guessing game, trying to determine which of their activities may or may not run afoul of OMB’s ambiguous regulations or the president’s whims,” wrote the Senators.
The Senators also argued that OMB’s proposal would force grant recipients to comply with vague, undefined terms that conflict with existing statutes. It would simultaneously weaken transparency and accountability requirements intended to safeguard taxpayer dollars. These changes could discourage qualified organizations from applying for federal grants and increase the risk of waste, fraud, and abuse.
“Article I of the Constitution vests the power of the purse in Congress, which Congress has historically exercised by appropriating taxpayer dollars through federal grants to fund critical programs, including to protect public safety, advance scientific research, and support health and nutrition initiatives,” concluded the Senators. “OMB’s proposal unlawfully seeks to substitute Congress’s role in directing federal spending with the President’s preferred priorities, and in doing so, makes it harder for every community and organization in the United States to fairly access federal funding. We call on you to rescind this proposal.”
In addition to Padilla, Schumer, Peters, Murray, and Merkley, the letter was signed by U.S. Senators Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), John Fetterman (D-Penn.), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Angus King (I-Maine), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
Padilla pressed OMB Deputy Director nominee Hal Duncan on this proposed rule during his confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Budget Committee on June 16, 2026. He raised concerns about the far-reaching impacts of this overhaul to the federal grants process echoed in this letter and about the motivations behind the rulemaking, suggesting it was intended to provide cover for the Trump Administration’s illegal withholding and cancellation of thousands of federal grants. He asked Duncan for a commitment that OMB would not use this or any future change to the Uniform Guidance to circumvent congressional spending decisions, which the nominee refused to provide. Padilla also submitted several questions for the record asking about the legal authority OMB is relying on to override congressional authorization, the impact on multi-year funding projects, OMB’s process for meaningfully considering public comments, the bypassing of statutorily required expert review, and more.
The full letter is available here.
Video of Padilla’s remarks is available here.
###
-
-
Some Notes on the Future of TPM11 hours ago
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Idiot of the Week1 day ago
-
-
-
-
