{"id":12552,"date":"2025-07-03T05:29:34","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T05:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=12552"},"modified":"2025-07-03T05:29:35","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T05:29:35","slug":"trump-to-kick-off-a-yearlong-celebration-of-americas-250th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/?p=12552","title":{"rendered":"Trump to kick off a yearlong celebration of America’s 250th anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

WASHINGTON — <\/span>President Donald Trump<\/a> campaigned on a promise to deliver a \u201cspectacular\u201d yearlong birthday party to mark 250 years of American independence<\/a>. On Thursday, he will be in the U.S. heartland to kick off the patriotic festivities leading up to next year\u2019s anniversary.<\/p>\n

The event at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines will feature \u201cdazzling\u201d displays of Americana and American history, musical performances and a fireworks show to cap the night, said U.S. Ambassador Monica Crowley, Trump\u2019s liaison to the organizing group, America250.<\/p>\n

Organizers see the coming year of festivities as a way to help unite a polarized nation<\/a> and bridge partisanship \u2014 a monumental task given the country’s divides. Thursday’s event comes as the Republican-controlled Congress pushed for final passage of a sweeping tax cuts and spending package<\/a> that’s at the heart of Trump’s legislative agenda but has united all Democrats against it. More U.S. adults also disapprove than approve of how the Republican president is doing his job.<\/p>\n

Iowa was a \u201clogical choice\u201d for the kickoff, Crowley said, because of its central location and Trump’s affinity for the state, which supported him<\/a> in each of the last three general elections. She also said Iowa’s middle-of-the-country geography is symbolic of the desire to use the coming celebrations to help bring people together. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had so much division and so much polarization over the last many decades, but certainly over the last few years, that to be able to bring the country together to celebrate America\u2019s 250th birthday through patriotism, shared values and a renewed sense of civic pride, to be able to do that in the center of the country, is incredibly important,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A recent Gallup poll showed the widest partisan split<\/a> in patriotism in over two decades, with only about a third of Democrats saying they are proud to be American compared with about 9 in 10 Republicans. <\/p>\n

About 4 in 10 U.S. adults approve of Trump’s performance as president, according to a June AP-NORC poll, while about 6 in 10 disapprove. That poll also showed a majority of Americans<\/a> said the June military parade<\/a> that Trump greenlit in Washington for the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army \u2014 an event that fell on his 79th birthday \u2014 was \u201cnot a good use\u201d of government money.<\/p>\n

Crowley spoke to the political and ideological schisms that left the country \u201ctorn apart\u201d ahead of its last big birthday celebration, noting that 1976 closely followed the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal that led Richard Nixon to resign from the presidency.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat moment was critical to uniting the country and moving forward, and I am very optimistic and hopeful that the yearlong celebration that we\u2019re about to launch will do the same thing in this present moment,\u201d she said in an interview. <\/p>\n

America’s 250th birthday \u201cis something that I think that all Americans can come together to celebrate and honor our history as well as our present and our future,\u201d Crowley said.<\/p>\n

On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, officially marking the 13 colonies’ split from Great Britain.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re gonna have a big, big celebration, as you know, 250 years,\u201d Trump said about the birthday during his Memorial Day address to a solemn audience at Arlington National Cemetery. \u201cIn some ways, I\u2019m glad I missed that second term where it was because I wouldn\u2019t be your president for that.” <\/p>\n

Video of then-candidate Trump proposing a \u201cGreat American State Fair\u201d in Iowa in May 2023 began to recirculate after his reelection last November. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, told the White House earlier this year that Iowa stood \u201cready” to host the event and that Trump had the state’s full support, according to a draft of Reynolds’ letter obtained by The Associated Press. <\/p>\n

The culminating fair instead will be held next year on the National Mall in Washington, according to a White House official who was not authorized to share details publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. But Trump honored his initial proposal with a kickoff in the first-in-the-nation caucus state.<\/p>\n

The lineup Thursday night will include Lee Greenwood<\/a>, according to social media posts advertising the event, whose song, \u201cGod Bless the USA,\u201d is a regular feature at Trump rallies and official events. Also attending will be Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Fingerhut reported from Des Moines, Iowa. AP Polling Editor Amelia Thomson DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to deliver a \u201cspectacular\u201d yearlong birthday party to mark 250 years of American independence. On Thursday, he will be in the U.S. heartland to kick off the patriotic festivities leading up to next year\u2019s anniversary. The event at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12552"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12554,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12552\/revisions\/12554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}