Trump-military parade protesters will face very heavy force

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President Donald Trump warned Tuesday that anyone who protests at the U.S. military parade here on Saturday will be met with "very heavy force."

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that they're going to be "celebrating big on Saturday," referring to the parade that will wind its way through downtown Washington, D.C.

"If there’s any protester that wants to come out, they will be met with very big force," Trump said. "I haven’t even heard about a protest, but you know, this is people that hate our country, but they will be met with very heavy force."

The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The military parade Saturday will mark the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army and is expected to feature tanks and hundreds of other military vehicles and aircraft. It's estimated to cost about $45 million, including as much as $16 million to repair D.C. streets afterward, U.S. military officials said last month.

Saturday is also Trump’s 79th birthday.

"We’re going to have a fantastic June 14 parade, Flag Day. 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," Trump said Tuesday.

Trump said that other countries celebrate the end of World War II and that the U.S. was the only country that did not.

And we're the one that won the war," said Trump, who added that if it weren't for the U.S., Americans would be speaking German or Japanese.

"We won the war, and we’re the only country that didn’t celebrate it, and we’re going to be celebrating big on Saturday," he said.

Officials are expecting hundreds of thousands of attendees, Matt McCool, the U.S. Secret Service agent in charge of the Washington field office, said Monday. McCool said they plan to deploy "thousands of agents, officers and specialists from across the country." People attending the parade or a related festival will be required to go through checkpoints with magnetometers.

Asked about any changes to security planning in light of the L.A. protests, McCool said, "We plan for those things ahead of time”

“We were paying attention, obviously, to what is happening there, and we’ll be ready for that if it were to occur here,” he said, though he added, “We have no intelligence of that happening here, but if it does, we have the resources to handle it."

U.S. Park Police had several protest permits pending on Monday, but officials “don’t have any significant concerns," said McCool, who added that they're tracking “about nine First Amendment activity demonstrations.”

The anti-Trump group No Kings is expecting more than 1,800 rallies nationwide Saturday that organizers said were planned as "a peaceful stand against authoritarian overreach and the gross abuse of power this Administration has shown."

With Trump's decision to deploy the National Guard and U.S. Marines to respond to the L.A. demonstrations, the group said in a statement: "This military escalation only confirms what we’ve known: this government wants to rule by force, not serve the people. From major cities to small towns, we’ll rise together and say: we reject political violence. We reject fear as governance. We reject the myth that only some deserve freedom."

On June 14—Flag Day—President Trump wants tanks in the street and a made-for-TV display of dominance for his birthday. A spectacle meant to look like strength. But real power isn’t staged in Washington. It rises up everywhere else.

No Kings is a nationwide day of defiance. From city blocks to small towns, from courthouse steps to community parks, we’re taking action to reject authoritarianism—and show the world what democracy really looks like.

We’re not gathering to feed his ego. We’re building a movement that leaves him behind.

The flag doesn’t belong to President Trump. It belongs to us. We’re not watching history happen. We’re making it.

A core principle behind all No Kings events is a commitment to nonviolent action. We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values and to act lawfully at these events. Weapons of any kind, including those legally permitted, should not be brought to events.

On June 14th, we’re showing up everywhere he isn’t—to say no thrones, no crowns, no kings.

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 250th 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.

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 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.”

The Deep South and the Heartland need a modern day version of Pol Pot to get them into the 21st century

President Donald Trump's military parade here on Saturday — a celebration of the Army's 250th birthday that happens to coincide with the commander in chief's 79th birthday — comes at a time when American forces are supporting domestic deportation efforts and Israel's defense against Iranian missiles.

The first such parade since Washington welcomed victorious U.S. troops home from the first Gulf War in 1991 — and an echo of similar extravaganzas following the Civil War and World Wars I and II — Saturday's affair will feature more than 6,000 troops, a procession of various types of armored vehicles alongside the National Mall on Constitution Avenue, and dozens of military aircraft cruising overhead.

Trump, who relishes pomp, will have his own reviewing stand.

But he runs the risk, literally and metaphorically, of watching rain drench his parade. Weather forecasts show a significant chance of precipitation and the possibility of evening thunderstorms. More substantively, the demonstrative show of American force will play out against the backdrop of Trump's inability to leverage U.S. power to fulfill campaign promises to end wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

In a twist of timing, the long-planned exercises come the day after the U.S. began providing aid to Israel in shooting down Iranian missiles and days after Trump deployed National Guard and Marine troops to southern California to quell protests against immigration raids.

Military parades have a long history in the United States, both at the national level and in local communities, said Barbara Perry, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia's Miller Center.

"Humans are drawn to pageantry," Perry said, but she noted a difference between traditional military expositions and Trump's birthday version.

"It's usually about the personnel," she said. "Now we know that this president has political issues all around the world, and wanting to show off the might. And if he views it, as in his first term, 'his generals,' and, if he views it as 'his military,' then you tie it to your personal special day of your birthday — that's what's different."

Trump critics say he is exploiting the military to nurture his own ego — at a cost of as much as $45 million to taxpayers — and, as he claims sweeping executive powers, presenting himself in the manner of a dictator. For decades, Americans have associated heavily armed military parades with Cold War-era authoritarianism in the former Soviet Union and other countries.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., also made that comparison this week and said he didn't think the parade was the best idea.

"I wouldn't have done it," Paul said Tuesday. "The images you saw in the Soviet Union and North Korea, we were proud not to be that."

That may help explain why most American adults are sour on the idea. New NBC News Decision Desk polling, released Saturday morning, shows that 64% of adults surveyed say they disapprove of the parade. Protests are planned in Washington and across the country, organized under the slogan "No kings."

Trump, who promised to meet protesters with "very big force," has sought to rebut the notion that he is celebrating himself.

"It will be a parade like we haven’t had in many, many decades here," he said this week. "And it’s a celebration of our country. It’s a celebration of the Army, actually."

Democratic lawmakers pushed back on Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was on Capitol Hill for a round of hearings this week, over their choices in how to use the military.

You are deploying the American military to police the American people. Sending the National Guard into California without the governor’s request. Sending the Marines — not after foreign threats, but after American protesters," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, told Hegseth.

“And now President Trump is promising heavy force against peaceful protesters at his D.C. military parade," she said. "Those sorts of actions, and that sort of rhetoric from the president, should stop every one of us cold. Threatening to use our own troops — on our own citizens — at such scale is unprecedented, it is unconstitutional, and it is downright un-American."

Ken Carodine, a retired Navy rear admiral, said in a telephone interview with NBC News that the parade is not just "a terrible idea" but one that many of the servicemembers may not be excited about.

"Most of the guys that are involved in either organizing or participating in this thing, it’s the last thing they want to be doing. But they can’t say anything," he said, explaining that they must follow the orders of their superiors, right up to the commander in chief.

"It’s a stupid order," Carodine said. "But it’s a legal order."

Some Republican lawmakers, including those who routinely back the president's actions, said this week that they are not enamored of the idea of the display.

"The United States of America is the most powerful country in all of human history," Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said Tuesday. "We’re a lion, and a lion doesn’t have to tell you it’s a lion. Everybody else in the jungle knows. And we’re a lion.”

Federal officials held discussions Friday afternoon about whether to move the start of the parade, scheduled for 6:30 p.m. after a day of festivities around the National Mall, to try to avoid the dangers and discomfort of possible thunderstorms. They ultimately decided to move ahead as planned.

For Trump, it promises to be another moment of triumph, an exclamation point on the 2024 election victory that brought him back to the helm of the most powerful nation on the planet.

But while the U.S. military has executed many successful missions in the years since Operation Desert Storm pushed Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait in 1991, the more memorable wars for most Americans are the drawn out engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq. The U.S. is not fighting any war abroad right now, and it is not coming off of any recent victory.

The Iraq and Afghanistan wars, once supported by the American public, became unpopular over time as they cost the nation dearly in blood and treasure. The U.S. retreated from Afghanistan in 2021 — after 20 years — under an agreement negotiated by Trump and fulfilled by President Joe Biden.

"Nobody had a parade for the kids coming back from Afghanistan," Carodine said. "That would have made a lot more sense than what we’re doing tomorrow

Nearly 2 in 3 U.S. adults — 64% — oppose the use of government funds for this weekend's military parade in Washington, D.C., celebrating the Army's 250th birthday, according to new data from the NBC News Decision Desk Poll, powered by SurveyMonkey.

Majorities of Democrats (88%) and independents (72%) oppose the use of government funds to put on the parade, while 65% of Republicans support it.

Spending public funds on the parade is more popular among supporters of the MAGA movement (75% support), compared to Republicans who identify more as supporters of the party itself (56% support).

The poll was conducted May 30-June 10 and surveyed 19,410 adults nationally, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.

The Saturday parade to celebrate the Army, which also falls on both Flag Day and President Donald Trump's 79th birthday, will include about 6,600 soldiers, 50 aircraft and 150 vehicles, according to defense officials. There will be different sections for different portions of the Army's history, and the event is expected to feature an air show with flyovers and a demonstration by the Army's Golden Knights parachute team. But it's not clear how possible storms forecast for Saturday in the Washington area could affect those plans.

The event could cost as much as $45 million, a price tag that includes up to $16 million for costs associated with potential damage to city streets caused by tanks driving on them.

Overall, 14% of adults said they strongly supported the use of government funds for the parade, and another 22% said they somewhat supported it. Meanwhile, 44% were strongly opposed and another 20% were somewhat opposed.

In early May, Trump defended the cost of the parade by arguing on NBC News' "Meet the Press" that the total was “peanuts compared to the value of doing it.”

“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.

Peacefully Protesting is a fundamental right in this country...It is so wrong of Trump to violate that sacred right we Americans have and hold dear.

Demonstrators crowded into streets, parks and plazas across the U.S. on Saturday to protest President Trump, marching through downtowns and blaring anti-authoritarian chants mixed with support for protecting democracy and immigrant rights.

Organizers of the "No Kings" demonstrations said millions had marched in hundreds of events. Governors across the U.S. had urged calm and vowed no tolerance for violence, while some mobilized the National Guard ahead of marchers gathering. Confrontations were isolated.

Huge, boisterous crowds marched in New York, Denver, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles, some behind "no kings" banners.

Thousands of protesters across L.A. — where demonstrations have occurred in the past week over immigration raids — were largely peaceful throughout the day, but police issued a dispersal order near city's downtown federal building after the crowd allegedly started throwing objects at officer.

Police deployed smoke and ordered everyone to leave the area at roughly 3:55 p.m local time. Aerial footage shows officers detaining several people, CBS Los Angeles reported.

Demonstrators crowded into streets, parks and plazas across the U.S. on Saturday to protest President Trump, marching through downtowns and blaring anti-authoritarian chants mixed with support for protecting democracy and immigrant rights.

Organizers of the "No Kings" demonstrations said millions had marched in hundreds of events. Governors across the U.S. had urged calm and vowed no tolerance for violence, while some mobilized the National Guard ahead of marchers gathering. Confrontations were isolated.

Huge, boisterous crowds marched in New York, Denver, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles, some behind "no kings" banners.

Thousands of protesters across L.A. — where demonstrations have occurred in the past week over immigration raids — were largely peaceful throughout the day, but police issued a dispersal order near city's downtown federal building after the crowd allegedly started throwing objects at officers.

Police deployed smoke and ordered everyone to leave the area at roughly 3:55 p.m local time. Aerial footage shows officers detaining several people, CBS Los Angeles reported.

The gatherings were timed for the same day Mr. Trump will be attending a military parade in Washington, D.C., to mark the Army's 250th anniversary, and amid heightened tensions with National Guard troops deployed to Los Angeles to counter anti-ICE protests there.

Saturday morning, Minnesota officials canceled all of the state's "No Kings" protests after Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed and state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were wounded in politically motivated shootings targeting the Democratic lawmakers overnight. Police said they found "No Kings" fliers and a list of other potential targets in the suspect's vehicle.

In Texas, state legislators received a "credible threat" against them ahead of the planned protest at the state capitol building in Austin, the state's Department of Public Safety said. A suspect was later arrested.

In other cities around the country, protests began as scheduled.

Atlanta's 5,000-capacity event quickly reached its limit, with thousands more gathered outside barriers to hear speakers in front of the state Capitol.

Light rain fell as marchers gathered for the flagship rally in Philadelphia. They shouted "Whose streets? Our streets!" as they marched to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where they listened to speakers on the steps made famous in the movie "Rocky."

"So what do you say, Philly?" Democratic U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland shouted to the crowd. "Are you ready to fight back? Do you want a gangster state or do you want free speech in America?"

One person was wounded in a shooting Saturday evening that occurred during a "No Kings" protest in Salt Lake City, Utah, officials said.

Salt Lake City police said in a post to social media that the shooting was "possibly associated with the demonstration."

The victim was rushed to a hospital with life-threatening injuries and a person of interest was in custody, police said. No further details were provided, and the circumstances that led up to the shooting were unclear. Police said about 10,000 people had been taking part in the protest.

"This remains a very fluid situation," police said.

Roughly 60 people who were protesting President Trump's Army anniversary parade and his deployment of National Guard troops in Los Angeles were arrested outside the U.S. Capitol Friday, authorities said.

The situation unfolded with approximately 75 people protesting at the Supreme Court Friday evening, Capitol Police said in a statement. A short time later, 60 of those left the Supreme Court and made their way to the U.S. Capitol, where police started to establish a perimeter, authorities said.

Capitol Police said the protesters then "crossed" a police line "while running" toward the building.

"A few people pushed the bike rack down and illegally crossed the police line while running towards the Rotunda Steps," Capitol Police said. "Our officers immediately blocked the group and began making arrests."

Two of those arrested were taken to a local hospital for "further treatment," according to Capitol Police.

The protest appeared to have been organized by the nonprofit group Veterans for Peace.

All those arrested will be charged with unlawful demonstration and crossing a police line, while additional charges for some will include assault on a police officer and resisting arrest, police said.

Veterans For Peace said in an Instagram post Friday night that "approximately 60 veterans and military family members staged a sit-in on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to demand the military get off our city streets from LA to DC, and taxpayer money be directed towards real investments in housing, health care, and food — not political stunts or militarism."

"President Trump threatened Americans coming to exercise their first amendment rights would be met with 'great force,'" Michael  T.  McPhearson, director of Veterans For Peace, said in the post. "We are the actual people who put uniforms on because we believe in the freedoms this country is supposed to be about and we will not be intimidated into silence."