Thirty minutes, mostly off a teleprompter, delivered in a flat voice. That was how Yahoo News described President Donald Trump’s Friday speech at Mount Rushmore, the kickoff to America’s 250th birthday weekend.
The White House had billed the address as optimistic, with a “fierce rebuke” of communism built in. The rebuke got the attention. “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,” Trump said. Communism, he went on, “is the enemy of the Constitution, above all, it’s the enemy of July 4, 1776.”
He said such doctrines “can be given no quarter.” The line was read as a shot at a handful of rising Democrats who run as Democratic socialists or progressives, several of whom have just won primaries. Trump and other Republicans are treating those candidates as the true face of the party.
Filibuster and the SAVE America Act
Trump also pressed Senate Republicans to abolish the filibuster and pass his election bill, the SAVE America Act. “We can only lose the midterms if we allow ourselves to lose the midterms,” he said. If the filibuster ended and the bill passed at once, he claimed, “we will not lose an election for 100 years.”
He called Democrats “The Communist Party,” saying they are made up of illegal immigrants, criminals “and everybody that doesn’t want to work.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican who was in the audience, has pushed back on ending the filibuster. He and others say the votes for the election bill are not there.
The mountain behind him
Trump spent part of the speech on the four presidents carved into the stone: Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Lincoln. “These are the men who declared freedom, won our freedom, saved our freedom and secured our freedom,” he said. He also described America as “not the natural way of the world,” but “the exception,” “rare” and “priceless.”
At one point he said “the identity of a nation is the destiny of a nation,” then added, “For whatever reason, that’s just the way it is here.” The crowd laughed.
South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden spoke first and thanked Trump for reviving the Independence Day celebrations at the monument. Trump last spoke there in 2020. Sen. Mike Rounds, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis were also in attendance.
Trump has promised to push the limits of his longest remarks in Washington on July 4, a day expected to bring a record-breaking heat wave.
