Fourth of July live: Trump slams communism in Mount Rushmore speech marking America’s 250th birthday

Washington, D.C.’S annual Independence Day is canceled due to “extreme heat” in the nation’s capital, organizers announced.

“The National Weather Service has issued an Extreme Heat Warning for the District of Columbia, with heat index values expected to reach between 110°F and 115°F. This decision was made after extensive and careful consideration of the safety of our participants, spectators, and staff as the top priority,” according to a statement from organizers.

The White House-backed Freedom 250 also is delaying the opening of the Great American State Fair on the National Mall. The fair will re-open at noon instead of 10 a.m. after closing temporarily on Friday due to triple-digit temperatures.

In a message commemorating the nation’s 250th anniversary of its independence, Former President Bill Clinton said the country recognizes the milestone “amid another period of deep division, renewed questions about America’s future and role in the world, and serious threats to our own institutions and to our democracy itself.”

His mentioned Trump’s anti-immigration campaign, war in Iran and retribution campaign against his political enemies.

“The people in charge have unleashed masked agents on American communities to seize people from their homes, workplaces, and the street,” he wrote.

“They have started an unconstitutional war on a whim, with no clear objectives or exit strategy, and zero regard for the consequences to the lives of millions of people around the world,” Clinton continued.

“With the help of lifetime appointees to the Supreme Court and a compliant Congress, they have weaponized government to settle personal scores, prosecute enemies, stamp out free speech, and made the federal government a new profit center for themselves and their allies,” he added.

“Their New Deal is socialism for the super-rich (and their own enrichment) even if it means increasing poverty, inequality, and illness at home and around the world. They also want to rewrite history to ignore and outright deny our past flaws while banning books that say otherwise from our libraries. And they select even our military leaders based on their version of political correctness over ability.”

In his speech at Mount Rushmore, President Donald Trump targeted recent far-left Democratic primary election winners using rhetoric not heard since the Cold War.

Calling communism “the enemy of July 4, 1776,” he went on to declare: “Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty. It is the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor or even 9/11.”

“You can be loyal to Karl Marx or you can be loyal to America. You can be a communist or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both,” Trump said.

“It’s death, tyranny, and the pursuit of evil. The godless communist morality states that anything is justified to bring about inhuman visions and to really propose what’s good. They don’t want good, they don’t love God and they don’t want God, they don’t love religion and they don’t want religion and they won’t have it. But we will not let them win.”

He did not name any Democrats specifically but the comments come after a week of railing about a resurgence of Communism after NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s slate of three insurgent socialist-backed challengers pulled off upsets.

President Donald Trump spent most of his Friday night speech from Mount Rushmore discussing the strength of America and its past. He also addressed the nation’s Constitution, saying it is only as strong as the people upholding it.

“The United States of America will always be the land of free men and women, and we will never ever fail,” Trump said.

Americans love freedom and cherish independence, Trump said. He said that citizens do not need permission to say what they want, worship how they choose and to keep guns. The president then claimed his administration has saved Second Amendment rights.

“Americans believe in self-reliance,” Trump said. “We look at success not with envy…with admiration and we will always earn it.”

Nearly half of Americans don’t know what they’re celebrating on the Fourth of July, according to a shocking poll and reported by Rhian Lubin.

July 4 marks the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, but 46 percent of Americans and 61 percent of Gen Zers couldn’t tell you that, the Cato Institute’s national survey found.

The family behind the planned July 4 fireworks in Washington, D.C., has spoken out about the effort to put on the show.

“I mean, it is the biggest show that we’ve done,” Rocco Vitale, president of Pyrotecnico, told CBS. “My earliest memories of fireworks displays and doing the Fourth of July was here.”

The family started planning the show in January. President Donald Trump has said it will be “record-setting” with the number of fireworks that explode. The 40-minute spectacle with 850,000 individual fireworks is expected to begin around 10:45 p.m.

As President Donald Trump spoke from Mount Rushmore on Friday night, he highlighted the U.S. and its military strength. Trump noted that the U.S. had won two World Wars and the Cold War.

Then he turned his attention to the conflicts since he returned to the White House.

“We beat Venezuela in one day,’ he said. Then Trump addressed his recent attacks on Iran and the ongoing peace talks. “And we knocked the hell out of Iran, they are dying to settle. They want to settle so badly.”

At least seven people who attended the Great American State Fair on Friday needed ‘advanced life support,’ CNN reported.

On Friday, temperatures at the state fair hit triple digits. The lightly attended event was even forced to close for a few hours because of the heat.

CNN’s Brian Todd noted that the seven people most likely needed aid because of heat-related issues, as reported by Mediaite. Overall, 11 people had to be taken to the hospital, and 44 sought medical care while attending the fair on Friday.

Collins was filmed standing on the National Mall Thursday among a sparse crowd.

“For a president who often fixates on crowd size, so far the fair on Washington’s National Mall hasn’t exactly lived up to the hype,” the CNN host said.