Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) decried the military parade being held in Washington D.C., in mid-June, claiming it is a “celebration” of President Donald Trump and his “power.”
The parade is being held to honor the military’s 250th anniversary on June 14, which is also Trump’s birthday. Schiff, a frequent critic of the president, said he was “horrified” by the parade, suggesting it is the latest example of how “Trump 2.0 is so much worse” than Trump’s first term.
“Trump wanted to do this in his first administration, and the mayor of D.C. at the time, because, among other things, this would destroy the roads to have these tanks going down the streets in Washington, D.C.,” Schiff stated on the Lovett or Leave It podcast. “Famously said, or tweeted, ‘tanks, but no tanks,’ but now there’s no protest to it because the District of Columbia has to worry about the president of the United States essentially trashing the district – withholding any kind of funding or using other federal means to disenfranchise further the people of the District of Columbia. And it just shows how much danger there is from this now unrestrained executive.”
The senator then claimed that Trump’s “military vanity show” is similar to one that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un or Russian President Vladimir Putin would host. He also claimed this is Trump’s way of saying, “I’m in charge of the military” and can call it up whenever.
In comparing the parade to others hosted on holidays like Independence Day, Schiff said this parade is “fundamentally different” because it’s “a celebration of the president and his power.”
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The parade’s route will stretch from the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, to Washington, D.C., culminating on the National Mall. The parade will go for three hours beginning at 6:30 p.m. and concluding with fireworks at 9:45 p.m.
The cost of the parade is estimated to be somewhere between $25 million and $45 million. However, Trump largely dismissed the cost, describing it as “peanuts compared to the value of doing it.”