Chuck Todd: Trump ‘ruined’ July 4 celebration in DC

Former “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd on Sunday accused President Trump of ruining the Fourth of July celebration of the country’s 250th birthday on the National Mall in Washington.

Todd said on his podcast “The Chuck ToddCast” that the president took over the celebration originally to be held by America250, which was established by bipartisan members of Congress in 2016 to celebrate the U.S.’s semiquincentennial.

“But this is the defining thing. Donald Trump has ruined the American brand and the American birthday celebration,” Todd said. “The country had a bipartisan, congressionally created America250 effort, you know, years ago in the planning.”

Todd said the celebration would have expanded across the country with “historians, civics groups, schools, museums, cities and towns, all capable of telling their own piece of the great American story.”

But, he added, Trump “couldn’t leave it alone,” starting off with starting the organization that led the events on the National Mall, Freedom 250, which Todd said “overshadowed the congressionally-created, taxpayer-funded America250 effort.”

Todd blasted the UFC Freedom 250 fight on the White House’s South Lawn on Trump’s birthday for setting up “a literal cage … or a bouncy house that looks like a cage.” He said the country’s “birthday turned into [Trump’s] own personal political rally.”

“His job is to make room for other people’s patriotism, too,” the former NBC News reporter said. “But Trump cannot do that. He can’t even fake it. He couldn’t fake it. Talk about the ultimate insult to all of us as Americans. He always thinks everyone else should accommodate him. He never thinks he should accommodate anyone else at all.”

Todd accused Trump of sullying “the brand of America,” adding that perhaps the 275th celebration will “make up for what we missed in this anniversary.”

“Maybe by then, we’re going to remember how to celebrate the country without making the celebration feel like an endorsement of one man or one political movement,” he said later in the episode. “Maybe by then we will have learned again that the American story is the most powerful when it is told honestly.”

The extended July 4th celebration on the National Mall also hosted what Trump last month vowed would be “the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all” as part of the “Salute to America” ceremony that capped off with a massive fireworks show.

Saturday’s festivities drew massive crowds to the Great American State Fair, even as temperatures broke 100 degrees due to a heat dome over much of the eastern U.S. The heat in Washington broke the 1919 record for the hottest Fourth of July in the city’s history, according to the National Weather Service.

The severe thunderstorm risk early in the evening placed the celebration on pause, with loudspeakers urging guests to leave at the Secret Service’s request.

The president’s speech, at a spot between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, was delayed from 9:30-10 p.m., until guests were notified that he would hold what he promised to be a long speech at 11 p.m.

The nearly 30-minute speech focused on American achievements but was doused in partisan rhetoric. He called on Congress to pass his top legislative priority, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, and he railed against the threat of “communism,” conflating the ideology with the victories won by several democratic socialists running as Democrats across the country.