President Donald Trump rang in America’s 250th birthday celebrations with a 28-minute speech at Mount Rushmore and a fireworks display that might have rivaled his words.
“The American dream still lives, and the American flag still flies more proudly than ever before over the people who will not quit,” Trump said at the end of his lengthy — albeit shorter than his usual hours-long — speech. “The nation that will not fail, the country that will not fall no matter how hard the enemy tries, we cannot be beaten.”
As Trump spoke, across the world, Iranians buried Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at funeral ceremonies with calls for revenge on the U.S.
In perhaps the most iconic excerpt from Trump’s speech, American exceptionalism was highlighted.
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“Americans honor excellence; we admire boldness; we respect ambition,” Trump said. “We are a nation of dreamers and believers, warriors and explorers, doers and fighters and in every human endeavor Americans see an unfinished competition.
“What is strong can be made stronger. What is fast can be made faster. What is great can be made greater than ever before. And that’s what’s happening with America.
“Show us a mountain, and we’ll just climb it. Show us an ocean and we’ll just cross it. Show us a problem and we will just solve it. Show us a task the world calls impossible and Americans will get it done.”
Trump finished with a salute to his oft-repeated “golden age of America” mantra for the 250th birthday celebration.
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“Tomorrow we reach a milestone like no other and celebrate with joyful hearts and soaring spirits, because after two and a half centuries, we know that this is not an ending,” Trump’s speech concluded. “This is only the beginning of the Golden Age of America. And together we will make America bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.
“I promise you that it’s an honor to be your president. Thank you very much and Happy Independence Day to all. God bless you all.”
The YMCA song and Trump dance followed in the Black Hills of South Dakota before a 23-minute light and fireworks display over the 60-foot carved heads of four U.S. presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.
The Mount Rushmore fireworks were accompanied by the words of past presidents.
And the grand finale exploded for over two minutes to the tune of Bob Sharples’ “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”
Trump’s relatively short speech, by his own standards, sets the stage for Saturday night’s Washington, D.C., address, which he promises will be “very long,” and accompanied by flyovers and what has had hailed as “the largest fireworks display in world history, 10 times larger than any that we’ve ever done in Washington or in the United States.”
