Donald Trump has kicked off America's 250th birthday weekend with an extraordinary partisan attack on the 'communist menace' in America, framing its supporters as 'the enemy of July 4th 1776'. Speaking for half an hour on Friday night at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, the US president praised the four presidents carved into the granite mountain—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln—before pivoting to denounce progressive Democrats as communists.
Trump's partisan speech at Mount Rushmore
Greeted by chants of 'USA! USA!' and a flyover of F-16 jets, Trump hailed the founding fathers as 'men of action, men of ambition, men of daring, men of destiny and men of truly great intelligence.' He asserted that US exceptionalism is rooted not only in its constitution but in its distinctive culture and identity, condemning attempts to 'beat the American spirit out of us' and vowing to an overwhelmingly white crowd: 'We are going to give our country its identity back.'
Trump then abandoned any pretence of a unifying head-of-state speech, instead picking up on a theme he has repeatedly hammered: casting progressive Democrats as communists who pose an existential threat. He spoke hours after Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist and New York mayoral candidate, delivered a pro-immigrant address seen as a rebuke to Trump. Four progressive candidates, including three democratic socialists, won Democratic primaries in New York last week and in Colorado on Tuesday, with others winning in Kentucky, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.
Anti-communist and anti-immigrant rhetoric
Trump tied his anti-communist rhetoric to the anti-immigrant theme that fuelled his election. 'As we approach this magnificent anniversary, we see our American identity under a renewed attack,' he said. 'A generation after we fought and won the cold war against the menace of communism, there is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success.'
He described communism as a greater threat to American liberty than the first and second world wars and the September 11 attacks. 'It's the enemy of the constitution,' he declared. 'Above all, it's the enemy of July 4th, 1776 … Communism is the exact opposite of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It's death, tyranny and the pursuit of evil.' Trump argued that communists do not love God or religion and have no respect for law, justice, principle, tradition or God-given rights. 'You can be loyal to Karl Marx or you can be loyal to America. You can be a communist or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both.'
Criticism over rewriting history
The president has been widely criticised for weaponising the semiquincentennial to rewrite history, promoting a narrative focused on white Christian men such as Washington and Jefferson while neglecting to acknowledge that both were slaveholders. He used Friday's speech to attack progressive narratives. 'As for those who peddle Marxist lies about our heritage, tell our children that we live on stolen land or that our heroes were oppressors, they're doing something much worse than slandering our past,' said Trump. 'They are slandering and attacking our future – not going to let that happen.'
Yet he was speaking in the Black Hills, which the US government illegally seized from the Sioux Nation in 1877 after Congress forced the tribe to cede land it had been guaranteed under treaty. Trump went on to equate the alleged communist threat with immigrants whom he suggested could be expelled. Pledging to 'vanquish communism quickly' and 'send them into exile', he told the cheering crowd: 'We will send them quickly away, and we will continue to build our country bigger and better and stronger than ever before. America will never be a communist country.'
Call to end filibuster and pass voter bill
Trump urged Congress to terminate the filibuster and pass the Save America Act, which has been widely criticised as a voter suppression bill. 'We do that, we're not going to lose an election for 100 years,' he said. 'The communist party is made up of illegal immigrants, criminals and everybody that doesn't want to work.' Earlier in the evening, actors portraying Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln delivered famous quotations, and country music artist Chancey Williams performed. In the crowd, a boy held a sign reading 'Trump the GOAT'.
Trump, whose approval ratings are near historic lows, is scheduled to address a crowd on Saturday at the national mall ahead of a massive fireworks show amid a searing heatwave that has disrupted independence day celebrations across the US.
