On Thursday TNB reported that the price tag for Trump’s military parade had ballooned from an estimated $10-$30 million in March to now $92 million. By the end of the day, TNB reported, the Pentagon announced the parade was ‘postponed’ until 2019, but they did not provide a specific reason why.
That is when Trump took to his phone on Friday and tweeted out he cancelled the parade himself blaming D.C. local politicians, alleging, “they wanted a number so ridiculously high I cancelled it” without offering any evidence.
The local politicians who run Washington, D.C. (poorly) know a windfall when they see it. When asked to give us a price for holding a great celebratory military parade, they wanted a number so ridiculously high that I cancelled it. Never let someone hold you up! I will instead…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2018
D.C.’s Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) responded to Trump with a tweet of her own, saying, “Yup, I’m Muriel Bowser, mayor of Washington DC, the local politician who finally got thru to the reality star in the White House with the realities ($21.6M) of parades/events/demonstrations in Trump America (sad).”
On Sunday Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s White House Budget Director from the Office of the OMB, took to the airwaves on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace to offer up his explanation when asked by Wallace to respond, saying the event was cancelled for other “contributing factors” other than costs, but never elaborated what those other factors might be.
Though he did add he thougtht the mayor of D.C. “seems like a nice lady” but “face it, this is a city that voted, I don’t know, probably 70 -80% against the president so to think that maybe the City Council of Washington, D.C. is not trying to help the president accomplish what he wants to accomplish shouldn’t be news to anybody…” and that he was “not familiar” with the figure Bowser floated, that the numbers he saw “were much higher.”
And that is when the D.C. City Council jumped in on Monday, The Hill reported, to add their response to Mulvaney, saying, “Actually, it was 95.1% of DC that voted for candidates other than the President…” that “opposition to a $92 million tax-funded parade is nonpartisan. We’d have opposed a $92 million parade led by the Obama’s & Chuck Brown, with statehood floats made of hemp.”
1) Actually, it was 95.91% of DC that voted for candidates other than the President
— Council of DC (@councilofdc) August 20, 2018
2) But that's irrelevant. Opposition to a $92 million tax-funded parade is nonpartisan. We'd have opposed a $92 million parade led by the Obamas & Chuck Brown, with statehood floats made of hemp pic.twitter.com/gZcVkWCP4k
And while all that was going on, The Hill goes on to report, down the road at the Pentagon, Col. Rob Manning, spokesman for the DOD had this to say:
“The president was not briefed by any member of the Department of Defense on any cost associated with the parade” adding that, “the president canceled the military parade before being briefed on the cost estimates.”
Here is the full interview with Mick Mulvaney with Chris Wallace. The questions about Trump’s military parade start at 6:15.
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Why This Matters (Opinion)
It doesn’t. It’s cancelled. Thank all the gods and goddesses and little green men. It appears, once again, there is no evidence for Trump’s wild accusations and allegations that anyone is trying to fleece anyone other than him trying to fleece American tax payers to pay for some Ode To Trump.