Cost concerns The parade drew concern over its high cost, with the Army estimating $25 million to $45 million for the parade, Democratic Senator
Richard Blumenthal criticized the parade, stating that "Trump squandering $45 million in taxpayer dollars on a military parade for his birthday is the epitome of government waste", Republican Senate Appropriations Chair
Susan Collins stated that she supported celebrating the army, but that "the cost does seem a bit steep". Democratic Senator
Jack Reed stated that the event was "all about his ego and making everything about him." Concern was raised over the optics of the parade, with NBC News describing Pentagon worries for the initial 2018 parade that it "could be seen as akin to the kind commonly seen in
Moscow,
Beijing or
Pyongyang, North Korea". Both
Axios and
The New Yorker described the parade as capping off "Trump's Strongman Week" following his military deployment of federal troops during the
Los Angeles protests and a partisan speech in front of soldiers at
Fort Bragg. Duke University political science professor
Peter Feaver stated that on the parade, "the military won't die on this hill even if they do not like it", and that "Trump's 2.0 team is better at giving the president what he wants whether or not it is best in the long run".
PBS News reported that veterans were divided over the parade, with some liking the parade's celebration of the military and service members while others criticized perceived politicization, "chest-pounding", and it distracting from planned budget cuts to the
Department of Veterans Affairs.
Refuse Fascism held a protest outside the White House prior to the parade. Coinciding with the parade, millions of demonstrators showed up for the
No Kings protests in over 2,000 events across the United States in the largest coordinated protests since the start of the second Trump administration. The protests, organized by the
50501 movement, opposed the parade as well as the policies and actions of Trump in general. The protests followed several days of
other protests in response to
Immigrations and Custom Enforcement (ICE) raids across the United States, including in California, where Trump deployed both the
California National Guard and the
United States Marine Corps in response to rioting during the
June protests in Los Angeles. Trump stated that anyone who protested his parade in Washington would be met by "very big force", stating that "this is people that hate our country, but they will be met with very heavy force".
The New York Times reported that several current and former Army officials and defense experts were uncomfortable with the optics of the parade following Trump's decision to federalize the California National Guard in Los Angeles and deploy active duty Marines, stating the simultaneous images were a juxtaposition that "could make it appear as if the military is celebrating a crackdown on Americans" and was "not the image Army officials had wanted".
Reception The New York Times reported that the parade was overshadowed by the
shootings of Minnesota state legislators,
Israeli strikes on Iran, and competing narratives on television and social media that criticized the event for using the military to promote Trump and suppress dissent during recent protests. It also described the event as suffering from numerous logistical obstacles and muted enthusiasm from spectators, with its reporters describing "an at-times underwhelming performance and crowds dispersing early amid a light drizzle". The No Kings protests also drew significant television coverage from the event. Organizers for the parade expected "hundreds of thousands" of spectators, although many seats remained empty amid sparse crowds which
The Times attributed to the poor weather and nationwide protests.
The Wall Street Journal described the crowds as "sparse" and "celebratory but subdued".
BBC News described the simultaneous protests and parade as a "split screen" and "a day of two distinct public displays".
The Guardian described the parade as "neither the totalitarian
North Korean spectacle that critics had grimly predicted, nor the triumph of
MAGA nationalism that Trump's most diehard fans craved", but was simply a parade that was "a little underwhelming". It described the public event as poorly planned, with too few and overflowing garbage cans, not enough exits, only a handful of food trucks, and a lack of signs and directions making it difficult to find one's way in or out. It quoted a
Secret Service officer who stated "Nobody knows what's going on." The event's corporate sponsorships with four companies with close connections to President Trump drew ethics concerns over possible violations of federal regulations. Many social media users mocked the parade due to poor marching and a lack of sync and discipline among parading personnel. One user commented that the lack of enthusiasm made it look like "prisoners of war are marching". According to journalist
Michael Wolff, Trump "kind of reamed out" Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about the parade, because he thought its tone was wrong, with Wolff describing Trump as wanting a "menacing" parade and was unhappy about soldiers "having a good time, that they were waving, that they were enjoying themselves and showing a convivial face rather than a military face". White House communications director
Steven Cheung responded to the allegations by calling Wolff "a lying sack of shit". Trump said that the parade was a "tremendous success", that "it didn't rain at all" despite forecasts and was "beautiful". An NBC poll conducted from May 30-June 10 and released on the day of the parade found that 64% of respondents opposed the use of government funds for the event. == Security measures ==