Pete Hegseth joined by video for “Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee Of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving” in Washington.Rod Lamkey/AP
Donald Trump’s MAGA-style celebration of the 250th anniversary of American independence ramped up Sunday with a federally funded prayer service that organizers said would “rededicate America as One Nation Under God.”
“Rededicate 250,” is one of a series of events that the Trump administration is holding to mark the country’s semiquincentennial on July 4. A UFC fight at the White House planned for Trump’s 80th birthday and an IndyCar race around the National Mall in August seem more the style of the 47th president, who was at his golf club in Virginia, not church, on Sunday. But the prayer event nods to his evangelical supporters by asserting that the United States is a Christian nation.
“We welcome Jesus into this place!” proclaimed one performer on a stage on the National Mall, in the shadow of the Washington Monument.
Speakers at the event, which I checked out on Sunday, included House Speaker Mike Johnson, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who controversially used a prayer service to ask God for “overwhelming violence against enemies” in the US war against Iran. Trump also addressed attendees via video.
The religious event drew substantial criticism.
“This outrageous event makes a mockery of a core constitutional tenet of American life, the separation of church and state, essentially promoting a particular flavor of white evangelical protestantism as state-sponsored religion,” Public Citizen Co-President Robert Weissman said in a statement. “This self-proclaimed day of thanksgiving torpedoes the best of American traditions—inclusivity and diversity—and has no place being connected to the U.S. government.”
Counterprotests were organized by Faithful America, a group opposed to Christian nationalism and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which hired a truck with a screen calling to “Celebrate Democracy, Not Theocracy.”
Hundreds of attendees waiting to the enter the event were accosted by a heckler who used a megaphone to accuse them of “supporting a pedophile.” (That was an apparent reference to unsubstantiated accusations about Trump being connected to Jeffrey Epstein.)
Just one of 15 scheduled speakers Sunday, an Orthodox Jewish Rabbi, was not a Christian. (A shabbat service on the Mall the day before appeared aimed at appeasing any concerns among Trump’s Jewish supporters about Sunday’s heavily Protestant focus.)
The gathering was organized by Freedom250, a private group established by the Trump administration that is using a so-far undisclosed amount of federal funding—along with corporate money from sponsors including United Airlines, ExxonMobil, John Deere, Lockheed Martin, MasterCard, Oracle and Palantir—to stage events.
The Trump administration has directed funds to Freedom250 that Congress appropriated to a different group, American250, a statutorily bipartisan group required to detail its spending for lawmakers. The White House appears to have set up Freedom25o to sidestep those requirements.
Around the perimeter of the event religious groups handed out literature, some of it anti-Catholic. Two days after federal officials announced “Operation Summer Surge” would bring thousands of additional troops, ICE agents and other law enforcement to Washington, in part to police anniversary events, there was a heavy presence: National Guard troops, US Marshals agents, and agents from Homeland Security Investigations (part of ICE) milled about.
The administration has awarded lucrative contracts for 250th anniversary celebrations to Event Strategies, a company that organized the rally Trump held on Jan. 6, 2021 that was followed by the attack on the Capitol. (The New York Times has reported Event Strategies has at least $13 million in federal contracts.) Owners of that company, which I reported was paid $688,000 for its work organizing that rally, have denied responsibility for the ensuing riot.
The Interior Department is also seeking $10 billion for a general fund the administration says will pay for beautification of federal land around Washington in connection with the 250th anniversary. And Interior and other federal agencies have awarded no-bid contracts to firms reportedly favored by Trump to repair various landscaping features, like the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting pool, citing an “urgency” exemption from federal contracting rules due to Trump’s wish for the work to be done by July 4.
Outside Sunday’s event, I checked out a “freedom truck,” one of a fleet of mobile museums offering information the country’s founders, including displays in which founders offer at times like right-leaning takes on US history.) The trucks, which will travel the US for the rest of the year, were created in partnership with right PragerU, which disseminates far right education material. Staffers manning the truck said that they work for Event Strategies.
