President Trump paid homage to veterans, attacked communism and touted America’s “golden age” in his July 4th speech commemorating the 250th anniversary of American independence.
Speaking in Washington, D.C. after severe weather forced a two-hour evacuation of the National Mall, Mr. Trump’s delayed speech mixed politics, patriotism and history.
The president honored veterans, including several from World War II, one of the first Black officers to lead a Special Forces team in combat in Vietnam, and William Harvey Carney, who escaped slavery to join the Civil war as a Union soldier and later became the first Black man awarded the Medal of Honor.
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While listing historic American military achievements, the president included two of his own. “You look at Venezuela, you look at Iran, we wiped it out, wiped out their military,” he said, before comparing the sinking of a Spanish fleet on Manila Bay to this year’s attacks on Iran’s navy. The president said the historic event was “much like our recent victory by sinking the entire Iranian navy, 159 ships to the bottom of the sea, all done in just a moment’s time.”
In similar tones to his speech on the eve of July 4th, Mr. Trump also used this speech to attack communism, in rhetoric which some have interpreted as an attack on Democrats ahead of the midterm elections.
“Our warriors did not fight communism on battlefields across the world, only to have that menace rear its ugly head right back here in America,” the president said. “It’s like a cancer, you got to cut it out.”
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Mr. Trump once again used the opportunity to push the SAVE America ACT, which would require voters to prove they are U.S. citizens to register, and show ID before casting their ballot. “We want to keep America great, and we will do so by approving the Save America Act,” the president said. “You won’t have cheating on the elections anymore, it’s very simple.”
The president rounded out his speech where he also paid tribute to NASA astronauts past and present, police forces and farmers, by declaring that the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is “only the dawn of the golden age of America,” and that “the best is yet to come.”