The heat is on. The R&B group Kool and the Gang may be co-headlining the historic ‘A Capitol Fourth 250th Weekend Celebration’, but that isn’t doing anything to cool the flaring political tempers in Washington during a record heatwave. Instead, the two-week-long ‘Great American State Fair’ on the National Mall to celebrate American emancipation from British tyranny has turned into the birthday party gone wrong.
The first sign that things were going awry for the party planners came a few weeks ago with the clumps of algae that began clotting the reflecting pool in central DC, which President Trump had tasked a company called Green Water Solutions to renovate. The company was true to its name. Green Water produced green water. In its current state, the reflecting pool has been variously likened to resembling a kale smoothie or Mountain Dew.
In an effort to deflect attention from the brouhaha over the failed renovation of the pool, Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and former Fox host, has announced that she will prosecute a former Olympic canoeist named Davey Hearn for allegedly vandalising the pool by dipping his hand into it and touching a piece of detached lining. Whether Pirro’s move will make much of a splash, however, is an open question. Lawyers representing Hearn insist that he is innocent.
The celebration of American emancipation from British tyranny has turned into the birthday party gone wrong
The problem for Trump is that his exhibition has been plagued with a variety of malfunctions. A power outage struck the food hall on opening day, melting the frozen desserts. Since then, the air conditioning system at the stalls showcasing various state exhibitions appears to be in a rather iffy state. Some visitors have resorted to visiting the baptism pool located at David’s Tent, which features 24/7 prayer and worship and is located opposite the National Gallery of Art, to obtain succour from the heat. Meanwhile, the ‘Arc de Trump’, a large plywood mockup of his proposed arch, began falling apart, as did the stage for the 250th celebrations during a practice session yesterday for musicians and dancers, when a heavy piece of rigging suddenly fell and nearly struck them.
The finances surrounding the event may prove to be the most potent line of criticism of it. Trump is already coming under fire for earning over $2 billion (£1.5 billion) last year as president. According to the Wall Street Journal, various Gulf state countries paid about $300 million (£225 million) to Trump’s businesses in the past year. Eyebrows are being raised not only on the left but also the right.
As John Fund has recently pointed out on this website, Trump’s ‘increasingly brazen flouting of ethical standards’ does not bode well for his presidency. The Wall Street Journal editorial page, too, has just deemed Trump’s looting spree:
An unseemly display of using the presidency for family profit. It’s hard to believe the Trump boys would be able to do the same deals if Dad wasn’t in the Oval Office… Charges of GOP corruption will resound through 2028.
Trump, though, professes to be unruffled. ‘I’m the only president that’s ever given up my salary,’ he told CNBC’s Joe Kernen in a lengthy interview on Thursday. He revealed that he not only remains intent on firing Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook – a move that the Supreme Court put the kibosh on this past week for fear that it would upend financial markets – but also that Eric Trump handles his finances: ‘It’s given to big firms … my son Eric handles it,’ Trump said:
I don’t talk to him about things such as this. I think I’d be allowed to; I’m not sure even what the status is, but I don’t.
For their part, House Democrats released a report on Thursday dissing Trump’s financial oversight of the semiquincentennial. ‘Under President Donald Trump,’ the report states, ‘this anniversary has been hijacked and perverted into a hotbed of corruption and self-enrichment.’ Trump and his associates, we are told, turned it ‘into an apparatus for raising and spending money in service of the President’s ego, political ideology, and pet projects.’
The controversy centres around Trump’s establishment of a parallel organisation called Freedom 250, which has supplanted a bipartisan one called America250 that was created by Congress in 2016 under the Semiquincentennial Commission Act. Congressman Jared Huffman is alleging the theft of hundreds of millions and wire fraud. Should Democrats win the House in November, they will encounter a target-rich environment for investigations of financial peculation.
What a revoltin’ development this is, as the Fantastic Four’s Ben Grimm likes to declare. It’s hard to avoid the sense that America has lost, or is in the process of losing, its mojo. During its bicentennial, one million spectators gathered in Washington to watch the fireworks display. Today a mere 150,000 are expected for the ‘Salute to America’ celebration on Independence Day. Ever the showman, Trump vowed on social media that:
On July 4th, at The Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, in beautiful and safe Washington D.C., we are going to host the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all, a ‘TRIBUTE TO AMERICA’, to conclude the program, and commemorate this Historic Occasion, I will be launching, what will be, the LARGEST FIREWORKS SHOW IN HISTORY, right here in our Nation’s Capital. Do not miss it.
Alas, it looks as though more than a few will. Might the tribute that he devised to honour himself prove Trump’s comeuppance?
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