Trump Warns of Communist Threat in Mount Rushmore 250th Anniversary Speech

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Standing beneath the carved faces of Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln on the eve of Independence Day, Donald Trump delivered a half-hour address at Mount Rushmore that blended celebratory patriotism with an explicit warning about what he called a resurgent 'communist menace' in America. He declared communism 'the enemy,' framed its domestic supporters as 'the enemy of July 4th 1776,' and vowed the country would never become a communist nation, casting progressive Democrats as part of the threat. The speech drew comparisons from some outlets to the Red Scare of the 1950s, when alleged communists were blacklisted from employment across the country. The address was paired with a flyover of Mount Rushmore and served as the unofficial launch of a broader 'America 250' celebration weekend marking the nation's semiquincentennial. The security apparatus around Saturday's National Mall event was classified as a 'national special security event,' the same tier as a Super Bowl or presidential inauguration, reflecting what the Secret Service described as a 'heightened threat environment.' Separately, record-setting heat blanketed much of the country, prompting the cancellation of some local July 4th events. The official America250 commission, which received only a fraction of its appropriated federal funds, found much of its planning space filled by Freedom250, a private effort with closer ties to the Trump orbit.