Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Report,” Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said she hoped President Donald Trump‘s militarized Fourth of July event was not “a show of force to our own people.”
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said, “He has converted this into a campaign event for all purposes. Imagine what the costs will be for a president to be on the mall. Leave aside the other security costs with people on the mall. Insert into that the president and dozens of other type level public officials, and you can see the costs to the federal government will be immense.”
Bowser said, “We’re asking people not to drive, to use the Metro. And Metro does a very good job of getting thousands of people out very quickly. The other thing that’s different about this event, Andrea, is that there’s a second location and there’s also a second location for fireworks. So we’re asking people to expect more street closures. But I also agree with the congresswoman’s sentiment that this has been a nonpartisan fun family event where people come from all walks of life and all points of this region in the world to celebrate the fireworks. We hope that the president will stick to that and not turn it into that, and we hope, too, that we never see the spectacle of our military force being on display as a show of force to our own people.”
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