Organizers see the coming year of festivities as a way to help unite a polarized nation and bridge partisanship. But it's a monumental task given the country's divides and the staunch Democratic opposition to the 800-plus page package full of the GOP's main policy priorities. More U.S. adults also disapprove than approve of how the Republican president is doing his job.
The event at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines drew a few thousand spectators waiting for the president for hours in the 90-plus degree Fahrenheit (32 degree Celsius) heat.
Iowa was a "logical choice" for the kickoff, said U.S. Ambassador Monica Crowley, Trump's liaison to the organizing group, America250. Crowley said that's because of its central location and Trump's affinity for the state, which supported him 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.
“We’ve 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’s 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,” she said.
A recent Gallup poll showed the widest partisan split 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.
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 said the June military parade that Trump green-lit in Washington for the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army — an event that fell on his 79th birthday — was "not a good use" of government money.
Crowley spoke to the political and ideological schisms that left the country “torn apart” 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.
“That moment was critical to uniting the country and moving forward, and I am very optimistic and hopeful that the yearlong celebration that we’re about to launch will do the same thing in this present moment,” she said in an interview.
America's 250th birthday “is something that I think that all Americans can come together to celebrate and honor our history as well as our present and our future,” Crowley said.
The Trump administration's own cost-cutting moves this year threaten to complicate the celebrations. Reduced funding led the National Endowment for the Humanities to send letters to state humanities councils across the country saying their federal grants had been terminated. Many of those councils had been working on programming to commemorate the 250th anniversary and had already dedicated some of their federal grants for events at libraries, schools and museums.
Gabrielle Lyon, executive director of Illinois Humanities and chair of the Illinois America 250 Commission, said the cuts already have curtailed some of the planned programs, including community readings of the Declaration of Independence.
“It is very hard to understand how we can protect and preserve people’s ability locally to make this mean something for them, and to celebrate what they want to celebrate, if you’re not funding the humanities councils,” Lyon said.
On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, officially marking the 13 colonies' split from Great Britain.
“We’re gonna have a big, big celebration, as you know, 250 years,” Trump said about the birthday during his Memorial Day address to a solemn audience at Arlington National Cemetery. “In some ways, I’m glad I missed that second term where it was because I wouldn’t be your president for that.”
Video of then-candidate Trump proposing a “Great American State Fair” in Iowa in May 2023 began to recirculate after his reelection last November, but 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.
The lineup Thursday night will include Lee Greenwood, according to social media posts advertising the event, whose song, "God Bless the USA," is a regular feature at Trump rallies and official events. Also attending will be Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
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AP Polling Editor Amelia Thomson DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report. AP writers Gary Fields and Chris Megerian also contributed.
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