Donald Trump was super excited for his Fourth of July Tanks, Planes, and Big Guns Spectacular—so much so that he reallocated $2.5 million from the Parks Service so he could afford to flex full-stop. But even taxpayer dollars and big Republican donors can’t change the weather, and the event ended up being kind of a big wet mess.
Indeed, what was supposed to be an imposing military parade turned into a much soggier affair, with rain hitting Washington, D.C. about two hours before Trump was set to give a speech at the Lincoln Memorial. In fairness to Trump, the MAGA supporters still turned out for the parade, but things looked a little sparser (and a lot wetter) closer to the action:
Hm.
Ah.
Not sure what’s happening here, to be honest.
Trump gave a speech behind some rain-protective plexiglass, advocating for the creation of Space Force and promising to plant an American flag on Mars, a planet where big military parades will probably not get rained on. He also heralded the famed Revolutionary War battle in which colonial troops “took over the airports,” which sounds like a gaffe but makes sense if you’ve spent a lot of time at JFK Airport, which has clearly not been renovated since the mid-18th century.
If you are wondering where the much-hyped big tanks and military vehicles were, it turns out only the Republican donors got to see them, as they were hidden behind a whole lot of security and fencing. There’s no such thing as a free tank.
Today was much sunnier. Trump made a new friend: