Donald Trump frequently went off-script and turned a commemoration of the U.S. Navy’s 250th anniversary into a politicized “rally” – his own words – on Sunday.
The president was in Virginia speaking to cadets and officers at Naval Station Norfolk where he used the celebration as a means to hammer his foes in Washington over a government shutdown that is approaching its second week, leaving thousands of federal workers and service members without pay. Cadets and other service members at Norfolk are due to stop receiving checks on October 15 if the shutdown endures.
In an address that lasted close to an hour, Trump endorsed pay raises for the military while attacking Democrats for the furloughing of both civilian and enlisted Americans who get their paychecks from the government. He described Democrats as “gnats” in response to the party’s refusal to support reopening the government without Republicans voting to extend health care plan subsidies.
“I want you to know that despite the current Democrat induced shutdown, we will get our service members every last penny. Don’t worry about it,” Trump said.
At one point he even attempted to convince the crowd of mostly cadets to boo “Barack Hussein Obama” — his derisive way of referring to the 44th president, whose middle name became part of Trump’s own efforts to persuade Americans that Obama was not a natural-born citizen.
The effort failed, but Trump did manage to elicit cheers at moments in the speech, while attacking Democrats on issues like immigration and wandering off into unrelated topics, like his proclamation attempting to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America”.
“I wouldn’t say that Mexico is thrilled with me,” Trump sarcastically joked.
One loud cheer came when the president warned America’s perceived enemies to “leave America in peace or be blown up in fire and fury never seen before.”
The president seemed to be received positively by the crowd, even as he criticized the combined efforts of the U.S. armed forces over the past several decades. Afghanistan and Vietnam, Trump identified, were two conflicts that he blamed U.S. generals and top brass for losing due to their supposed embrace of “political correctness.”
That term was also deployed by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in his speech to generals in Washington this past week, which critics of the administration argue is an attack on women and LGBT members of the armed services.
“We won World War I and World War II. We won everything in between. We won everything before. And all of a sudden they decided to change the name. They went woke, then, too, you know. Woke is a long-term word,” Trump declared. A handful of shouts were heard from the crowd, turning heads, as the president spoke.
“Let’s face it: this is a rally,” the president admitted at one point.
Trump rambled over a wide range of topics from the stage. He complained about the FBI investigation that followed him through his 2016 election victory, claiming falsely that he caught Obama and his top officials rigging the election. He also snuck in a promotion for the UFC fight he plans to host on the White House lawn in the coming months.
And pointing out the base’s comparative proximity to D.C., Trump took the opportunity to boast about his “takeover” of the nation’s capital by deploying hundreds of National Guard troops around the District of Columbia and flooding the streets with members of federal law enforcement, including ICE. He vowed imminent deployments of National Guard troops to Memphis and Chicago.
“We’re doing it like nobody’s ever done it before. So I just want to tell you: you’re very close to D.C.; the restaurants are thriving. The restaurants were dying. They were closing, one after another. Now they’re opening up, they’re thriving.”
“It’s a safe place now, our nation’s capital,” he added.
The president packed up and returned to the White House after his speech but passed out challenge coins to Navy brass at the event and also met with service members and posed for photos on board the USS George H.W. Bush.
On Monday, the White House is set to decide whether a deal with Democrats is possible to reopen the federal government and end a shutdown that will be entering its sixth day, the president’s economic adviser Kevin Hassett said Sunday. Republicans and Democrats left Washington over the weekend without a deal, and members of the House departed for a district work period set to last the entire coming week.
If a deal is not reached, Trump and other administration officials with the backing of some congressional Republicans have threatened to begin mass federal layoffs.
In the Senate, a handful of Democrats could break ranks to support ending the shutdown but for now, the party is in near-lockstep behind the strategy of withholding the votes necessary to break a filibuster until Republicans agree to extend subsidies for health care plans on the Affordable Care Act public exchanges.
Those subsidies are due to end with the new year and spike premiums for many Americans.
