With help from Eli Okun, Ali Bianco and Irie Sentner
Good Sunday morning. This is Erin Doherty, hoping everybody stayed cool and enjoyed the festivities. Send me your best firework pictures and get in touch.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMERICA: Most Americans remain proud of their country. They’re far less convinced the Founding Fathers would feel the same.
The United States just celebrated its 250th anniversary, but the year thus far has put the nation’s stark partisan divide on full display. Democrats and Republicans are locked in a highly polarized midterm election year. Americans say they’re losing trust in the government and its leaders. And Washington is divided over key issues like immigration, the economy — and the direction of the country.
A new POLITICO Poll found that U.S. adults are split over how the nation’s founders would view the country today: Just 27 percent say they would be proud, while 51 percent say they would be disappointed. Another 22 percent say neither or aren’t sure.
The gloomy outlook spans the political spectrum. While those who voted for President Donald Trump in 2024 are more likely to say the Founding Fathers would be proud, even they are split. Forty-two percent say the founders would be proud of the country today, while another 42 percent say they would be disappointed.
It’s even worse among voters who backed former VP Kamala Harris in 2024. Nearly two-thirds of them say the Founding Fathers would be disappointed with the country today, according to the survey, which was conducted by the independent London-based polling firm Public First from June 14-17.
Majorities across both sides of the aisle said “America is losing the things that made it American.” Still, Democrats and Republicans vary on what exactly they count as patriotic — from singing the national anthem, to supporting the military to owning a U.S. flag — and how proud the country should be of its history.
Patriotism itself has become increasingly politicized. Across the West, the political right has claimed the overt language and symbols of national pride. In the U.S., the rise of Trump and his MAGA movement has pushed the GOP to lean into nationalistic policies like mass deportations, an aggressive trade agenda and an “America First” approach to everything. That’s left many Democrats wondering how to redefine patriotism for themselves and their voters.
TMZ reporter Charlie Cotton recently asked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) what she has to say to people who are “struggling with patriotism right now.”
“No one can take America away from us,” she responded. “America is such a meaningful place to the world because of precisely the kinds of struggles that we feel sometimes. It’s about, yes, the history of our lowest lows … and it’s also about the triumph of our highest nature over the bad.”
Even amid partisan divides and broader anxiety about the country’s future, Americans overall supported marking the 250th anniversary. Nearly three quarters (73 percent) say it is important for the U.S. to celebrate the milestone, including 91 percent of Trump 2024 voters and 65 percent of Harris 2024 voters.
And despite their more pessimistic view of how the Founding Fathers would feel about the country today, 75 percent of U.S. adults say they are proud to be American.
THE CELEBRATIONS
Trump delivered his much-anticipated speech commemorating America’s 250th on the National Mall last night, taking the stage after 11 p.m. He spoke for almost 40 minutes, blending his usual campaign-style speaking with a message of reverence for America’s semiquincentennial.
“The speech did contain much more history than what one ordinarily hears at a Trump rally,” NYT’s Shawn McCreesh noted. “The president talked about the ‘genius’ of the founding fathers. He made mention of Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill and Lewis and Clark. He told the story of Sgt. William Harvey Carney, the first African American man to win the Medal of Honor. ‘He loved our country,’ Mr. Trump said, ‘he loved our flag.’ Several veterans appeared onstage, and Mr. Trump told stories of their valor and thanked them for their service.”
“But his typical asides had a way of puncturing the history lesson,” NYT notes. “‘We rebuilt our military in my first term,’ he said at one point. ‘We used it a little bit in our — actually, I should say third term, but I won’t do that, because I don’t want any controversy.’”
He also leveled his usual gripes about how he has been treated. “Unlike so many others in the world, in this country we have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equal justice under the law — although I wasn’t treated that well, but we won’t get into that,” Trump said.
And he returned to his recent favorite attack line, pointing to what he calls the rise of communism as a reason to reject Democrats in the midterm elections later this year. “We don’t want communists in our country,” he said. “It never worked, and it never will work.” In his first Truth Social post of the day marking America’s 250th celebrations, Trump said: “Has anyone ever seen a Happy Dumocrat?”
Still, the president saved plenty of room for patriotic pomp, holding the United States up as a beacon of life and liberty. “For 250 years, the United States has been the hope, the promise, the light and the glory among all of the nations in the world,” Trump said. “Nobody can be like us.”
The counterprogramming: A handful of Democrats who have positioned themselves as figures who might lead the party into the future put out their own messages marking the holiday — offering direct opposition to Trump’s version of celebration.
- In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom — a potential 2028 presidential candidate — posted his own speech from the Governor’s Mansion in Sacramento, deploying his typical rhetoric warning of Trump’s effect on modern politics. “This is one man trying to do to our American self-government what no king and no foreign power has ever managed to do,” Newsom said, frequently mentioning the president by name.
- In Maryland, Gov. Wes Moore — another name being floated in 2028 jockeying — took a slightly different tack. Moore’s speech at the Maryland State House in Annapolis made no mention of Trump by name — but his warnings echoed Newsom’s and left no doubt to who was on his mind,cautioning that the “very premise of patriotism is under attack” and lamenting that the “politics of today feel like a grift.”
- On Friday, NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who’s constitutionally ineligible to be president but will likely possess kingmaker powers among the insurgent left, gave his vision: “We are told that America is exceptional because we are richer, stronger, more powerful than everyone else,” Mamdani said. “The truth, my friends, is that America is exceptional because here nothing is fixed into place.”
- The less-straightforward characterizations of America attracted the ire of VP JD Vance in a speech in New York on Saturday: “Reject the view of your nation that sees only its sins, but not its grace and its greatness.”
The formers: Former President Barack Obama posted a brief message on X, urging the next generation to “take up the unfinished work of the last and carry it further.” Former President Joe Biden in an X post encouraged Americans to continue fighting for democracy. “I don’t believe we’re as divided as we’re told we are,” Biden wrote. I’ve bet my whole life on the American people, and I’m not stopping now.”
But it was former President Bill Clinton who issued the starkest statement on the day. “Today, we celebrate this milestone amid another period of deep division, renewed questions about America’s future and role in the world,” Clinton said via his X account. He did not name Trump but warned of “threats to our own institutions and to our democracy itself.”
Back in Washington, much of the day was marred by extreme weather conditions that caused plenty of discomfort and delays.
“Visitors in red, white and blue darkened with sweat stood in lines for hours, sometimes screaming in frustration and other times collapsing from exhaustion. The Independence Day parade was canceled and the Great American State Fair delayed. Steel fences and closed roads made photos of iconic monuments hard to capture. Both white supremacists and liberal activists marched through the city, each demanding their country back,” WaPo’s Layli Nazarova and colleagues write.
But once the events kicked off, the evening dazzled those gathered.
“In bursts of golds and yellows, reds, whites and blues, the fireworks illuminated the black canvas of the late-night sky. On the Mall, squeals of delight and disbelief could be heard from the outset. After a while, it seemed, attendees ran out of expressions of disbelief and just observed quietly,” WaPo’s Liam Bowman and colleagues write.
“It felt like a symphony. Everything ebbed and flowed,” one observer who had driven to see the fireworks display from Charlotte told WaPo. “I feel like everybody kind of forgot any problems, they got together, there was no negativity anywhere.”
SUNDAY BEST …
— Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on the white supremecist Patriot Front group marching in D.C. yesterday, on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “Certainly, what they stand for is nothing that I could possibly agree with. But one of the foundational principles of the United States which makes democracy messy is free speech. And there are plenty of things that I see that I might personally find offensive, irreprehensible. … I mean, we’re a country where someone can run and be elected saying that they’re a communist. But yet this is what our nation has stood against and fought for, because we’re about — we’re about life and liberty.” More from Burgum on the reflecting pool, via POLITICO’s Emilio Perez Ibarguen
— Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on the Founding Fathers, on “State of the Union”: “They were worried about creating a government where a king could form again, where one individual would amass so much power that you would have tyranny all over again. I fear that we are finding our way back to that. I think, unfortunately, you have some profoundly and pathetically weak individuals in Congress who could learn a few lessons from the strong foundation that the founders set for us.”
— Speaker Mike Johnson on the House GOP revolt that has effectively frozen floor action, on “Fox News Sunday”: “I just decided it was best to send everybody home to go celebrate July Fourth in their districts. We’ll come back, gather everybody together. The big urgency is to get SAVE America passed.”
6 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
1. NATO THE CASH MACHINE: Trump is heading to this week’s NATO summit in Turkey having recast the transatlantic alliance built on shared democratic values into a framework he’s more comfortable dealing with — a business, POLITICO’s Paul McLeary and Stefanie Bolzen report. At the gathering this week, Trump will again turn the focus on how much Europeans can spend on American military equipment.
“The shift, which reflects the administration’s increasingly transactional approach to some of America’s closest allies, risks muscling out discussions about how to expand membership or defend NATO’s eastern flank against Russia. And it has strained the bonds that once kept the group intact — turning the alliance into one shaped more by national interest than shared ideals,” Paul and Stefanie write.
Brave new world: Trump is also arriving in Ankara with powerful leverage over the military alliance: The U.S. has the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence technology and can decide which of its allies gets access — a reality that has frustrated some European allies, POLITICO’s Maggie Miller reports.
More on NATO: “On the Ground Along NATO’s Eastern Flank — as Russia Threatens” by POLITICO’s Laura Kayali and Axel Springer Global Reporters Network colleagues
2. CASH DASH: The NAACP is “launching the biggest midterm spending campaign in the civil rights group’s history as a way of marking the country’s 250th anniversary and as a response to the Supreme Court weakening the Voting Rights Act,” NBC’s Bracey Harris scoops. “The NAACP announced the rollout of ‘We the People,’ a $20 million get-out-the-vote campaign across 14 states — including competitive states like Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Texas — and 33 congressional districts, with the goal of reaching 6.5 million Black voters.”
3. JOLLY GOOD: “A Jolly campaign in Florida amid an angry Democratic summer,” by POLITICO’s Kimberly Leonard: “There’s no question about it: Democrats are having a hot, insurgent summer. And then there’s David Jolly in Florida. The front-runner for the Democratic nomination for governor is an even-tempered attorney, former lobbyist and political commentator who was once a Republican House member. … Jolly has pledged he won’t engage in negative campaigning and has argued Florida voters are ‘just looking for some goodness in our politics.’ … But the question remains whether Jolly’s civil style and posture can invigorate an electorate that seems to crave disruption and generational change.”
4. BACK IN BUSINESS: Starting today, Planned Parenthood’s beleaguered network of clinics regain access to hundreds of millions in Medicaid funding as a result of Republicans’ failure to pass an extension of the one-year defunding provision they approved last year. And conservatives are fuming, POLITICO’s Alice Miranda Ollstein reports. Conservative lawmakers and activists are furious with GOP leadership for prioritizing other issues in the summer’s budget battles. The anti-abortion movement argues this is a bigger blow to morale than other issues that have come up with the administration because they view it as backsliding on something already achieved.
5. IT’S ALWAYS 2020 SOMEWHERE: Arizona was a hotbed for the baseless election denialism that Trump led following the 2020. And the issue is still bubbling in the battleground, WSJ’s Eliza Collins reports from Phoenix. “In videos released this summer by Maricopa County, two election staff … removed a ballot envelope scanner and provisional ballot envelopes from a secure location while votes for a special election were still being tallied. They returned the equipment within an hour. The incident is the latest flashpoint in an increasingly bitter fight between the mostly Republican elected officials who run elections in Arizona’s biggest county. The clash has rekindled a debate many Arizona voters had hoped to move on from.”
6. MORE FROM THE POLITICO POLL: “Americans say they’re sick of politics taking over their lives. With exceptions,” by POLITICO’s Jessie Blaeser and Alec Hernández: “Roughly 60 percent of Americans say it feels like politics are everywhere these days where it does not make sense for things to be political, according to new results from The POLITICO Poll. It’s a rare point of harmony between Republicans and Democrats, with majorities of both parties also agreeing that it is becoming less important what celebrities say about politics. Unless they agree with them.”
FOR YOUR RADAR — Paul Pelosi, Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s husband, is suspected of crashing into a parked car and leaving the scene over the Fourth of July weekend, law enforcement officials said Saturday, per POLITICO’s Marisa Guerra Echeverria. The Napa County Sheriff’s Office said a witness reported a brown convertible striking a legally parked, unoccupied vehicle, stopping briefly and driving away. The parked car sustained major rear damage. The Sheriff’s Office said in a news release that Pelosi admitted hitting something but did not know what he hit, so kept driving until his car became disabled. Officials said an investigation detected no alcohol, and that driving under the influence was ruled out.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) … Reps. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) and Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) … Louisiana state Treasurer John Fleming … NYT’s David Sanger … Michael LaRosa … Mike Stranz … State’s Dylan Johnson … Laura Peavey of the Financial Services Forum … Kerry Picket … Mike Manatos … Walt Cronkite of the Structured Finance Association … POLITICO’s Zack Colman … Hannah MacInnis … CBS’ Alisa Wiersema Lucaci … Steve McMillin … Beverly Kirk … NBC’s Julie Shapiro … Qualcomm’s Angela Baker … former Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) … Steve Rattner of Willett Advisors … Barb Barrett of Stateline … David Mortlock of Willkie Farr & Gallagher … Mira Ricardel … John Lawrence … Julie Nixon Eisenhower
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