Nationwide protests loom over Trump's upcoming military parade

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump is getting the parade he wanted showcasing America’s military power — but he’ll also be getting mass protests exposing the nation’s partisan divisions.

The tanks and artillery launchers rolling through Washington on Saturday will honor the Army’s 250^th anniversary, which falls on the day Trump turns 79.

About 7,000 soldiers will march. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to line up along Constitution Avenue on the co-birthdays and cheer. Trump is set to watch the spectacle from a viewing stand south of the White House.

But in Washington and in all 50 states, organizers will be staging protests that could dwarf the parade in size. A coalition of pro-democracy, labor and liberal activists is arranging a full day of counterprogramming to make the case that Trump is hijacking the Army celebration to venerate himself.

“The goal here is to deprive Trump of what he wants in this moment, which is a story about him being the all-powerful political figure of our time, and instead create a contrast with normal, everyday people demonstrating that power in this country still resides with the people,” said Ezra Levin, a co-founder of the progressive group Indivisible, who is helping organize what participants have dubbed a nationwide “No Kings” demonstration.

If past protests are a guide, the participants could number in the millions, he said. A total of 1,800 rallies are expected, with events in each congressional district, he added.

Another group called Women’s March is also arranging protests to coincide with the parade, with a theme of “Kick Out the Clowns.” Organizers expect up to 5,000 people to participate in Madison, Wisconsin, alone, said Tamika Middleton, chief political and strategy officer of Women’s March.

“Nothing feels more absurd than the idea of this president having a massive military parade on his birthday,” she said. "It feels surreal for many of us.”

NBC News reached out to the White House for comment.

On Tuesday, Rand Paul of Kentucky became the first Senate Republican to criticize the parade, citing the imagery. Showing off lethal hardware is something other countries do, not the United States, he said.

“I wouldn’t have done it," Paul told reporters. He added that "we were always different than the images you saw in the Soviet Union and North Korea. We were proud not to be that."

Trump isn't deterred. Speaking in the Oval Office on Tuesday, he warned that protesters this weekend will face "very big force." He didn't distinguish between those who demonstrate peacefully or violently.

"And I haven’t even heard about a protest," Trump added, "but you know, this is people that hate our country. But they will be met with very heavy force." (At a news briefing this week, a Secret Service official said thousands of agents and officers will be on hand to provide security.)

The parade is happening at a fraught moment when Trump has drawn the military — among the nation’s most trusted institutions — into a tense standoff in Los Angeles over his aggressive efforts to deport people living in the United States illegally. The Trump administration this week activated about 700 Marines to help quell demonstrations over his immigration enforcement methods, despite warnings from California officials that he is inflaming the situation.

The military’s main purpose is to fight and win foreign wars, and it has largely retained its reputation as an apolitical body carrying out a national mission. Only in rare instances has the nation held military parades: The last one took place 34 years ago after the United States defeated Iraq in the first Gulf War.

Saturday will open with a festival on the National Mall. Soldiers will be on hand to meet people and take part in special military demonstrations.

The parade will start at 6:30 p.m. ET and follow Constitution Avenue from near the Lincoln Memorial to the Ellipse south of the White House. Workers have been laying down steel plates to protect the roads from the heavy tanks. Bradley Fighting Vehicles will also be on display, while dozens of helicopters will take part in a flyover. At the Senate Armed Services hearing last Thursday, Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll put the cost at $25 million to $40 million.

Driscoll justified the expense as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fill up our recruiting pipeline with young Americans.”

Trump told NBC News in May that the cost was "peanuts compared to the value."

“We have the greatest missiles in the world. We have the greatest submarines in the world. We have the greatest Army tanks in the world. We have the greatest weapons in the world. And we’re going to celebrate it,” he said in an interview with "Meet the Press."

Some military experts echoed that sentiment, seeing merit in an event that gives Americans a chance to thank their soldiers and see them up close.

“Only 9% of young Americans have an inclination toward military service,” said Kori Schake, who has worked at both the Defense Department and the White House National Security Council. “And so, exposing more Americans to our Army, where kids can talk to soldiers about their experience, is good for the country.”

Others said the money is being wasted. A better idea would be to restore programs serving veterans or rehiring some of those who lost their jobs in the Trump administration’s effort to shrink the government workforce, some lawmakers and veterans groups said.

Department of Government Efficiency cuts have fallen heavily on veterans, who make up a disproportionate share of the federal workforce. Meanwhile, the Veterans Affairs Department cut a program that provides mortgage assistance to veterans so they don’t face foreclosure on their homes.

The mortgage program “helped tens of thousands of veterans stay in their homes. And they want to spend $50 million on a parade?” said Chris Purdy, who heads the Chamberlain Network, a pro-veterans group. “It really shows this is about an individual’s pride and not the nation’s pride.”

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, criticized the parade's price tag in an interview.

"The military is being required to spend resources and time on this, instead of training and preparing to meet the national security needs of the country," he said, adding, “It’s a horrible idea."

Trump has long championed a military parade. In 2017, he attended the Bastille Day ceremony in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron and got a firsthand look as tanks rumbled past the reviewing stand.

The trip left an impression. After he returned to the White House, Trump spoke often about holding a similar parade at home, a former White House official said. Aides delayed and diverted him, mentioning the potential cost and telling him the United States didn't make a point of flaunting its hardware, the person said.

“Certainly, the French do it a lot and the North Koreans do it a lot and the Russians, but we don’t really tend to do those things,” the former official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“He brought it up quite a bit,” the person continued.

In his Oval Office remarks, Trump didn't mention the parade in the context of his birthday. He noted instead that the day is Flag Day.

"We’re going to have a fantastic June 14th parade, Flag Day," he said. "It’s going to be an amazing day. We have tanks, we have planes, we have all sorts of things. And I think it’s going to be great. We’re going to celebrate our country for a change."

Whether the day comes off as a tribute to the Army or to Trump hinges on how Trump behaves in the moment, analysts said.

“The degree to which this is a violation of norms depends in part on what the president says and does on the margins of this event,” said Peter Feaver, a Duke University political science professor who has written about the military’s relationship with political leaders.

In the run-up to the parade, Trump is capitalizing on the Army's milestone birthday in partisan terms. Speaking Tuesday at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, he took aim at various Democratic foes, including the last commander in chief, Joe Biden. He invoked Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, another Democrat, eliciting boos from the audience.

Mentioning Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee last year, Trump said: "I think he's running for president, but he's a radical lunatic."

Linking the military to the sitting president’s birthday and sending it into the streets to confront fellow Americans risk tarnishing its credibility while pushing the country away from its democratic roots, Trump's critics warn.

“Displays of hardware, whether its tanks or Stryker vehicles, is more characteristic of totalitarian militaristic states like North Korea or Russia,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who questioned the event’s cost at a recent hearing with Army leaders. “And they are used in part to glorify the dictator in those countries. This parade falls on President Trump’s birthday and is as much a celebration of his birthday and him — at least it’s designed to be — as it is our Army.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com