President Donald Trump has accepted an invitation to kick off the New York City Veterans Day Parade next week.It might be a security nightmare to have a president marching in this parade, or even riding in an open limousine -- the organizers don't want another November 22, 1963 -- but in any case, it's not going to happen. (It's hard to imagine Trump actually walking the 1.2-mile parade route -- recall that Trump needed a golf cart to transport him 700 yards for a group photo at the 2017 G7 summit in Taormina, Sicily.)
United War Veterans Council Chairman Douglas McGowan and the White House said on Wednesday that Trump will offer a tribute to veterans at the opening ceremony of Monday's 100th annual parade....
After his remarks, the president will lay a wreath at the Eternal Light memorial in Madison Square Park, White House spokesman Judd Deere said.
Why is Trump doing this? Won't he be mercilessly booed? He may be hoping that surrounding himself with veterans will deter boo-ers. He may be thinking that however Trump-skeptical the New York area may be, the crowd attending this parade will consist of his kind of people. (He did win more than 1.3 million votes in the city, Long Island, and suburban Westchester and Rockland Counties, although it should be noted that those locales gave Hillary Clinton more than 3.1 million votes.)
He doesn't need to have a great day -- all he needs are a few seconds of good visuals. Intercut patriotic shots of flags and attendees, add fake Aaron Copland music, overdub whatever prattle Stephen Miller gives him to read for the ceremony, and voilà, you've got yourself one of these:
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 5, 2019
The reason Trump is doing this is that his campaign head, Brad Parscale, wants to post a red, white, and blue Trump ad to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube sometime Monday night. In other words, the city of New York and the parade's donors are paying (and probably paying more than they bargained for, given the extra security needed) to create a backdrop for a Trump reelection commercial.
Government ethicist Walter Shaub said as much about the ad shown above, which was filmed at the July 4 celebration in Washington this year.
Walter Shaub, the former director of the Office of Government Ethics, slammed President Trump's July Fourth "Salute to America" event as a "taxpayer-funded campaign ad." ...Expect a lot of this in the next twelve months.
"There you have it. A taxpayer- funded campaign ad. Your tax dollars coopted for the benefit of a man whose idea of public service is the public serving him," wrote Shaub, who left the White House in 2017 after clashing with Trump, and has since become a frequent critic of the president.
Shaub works for nonprofit government accountability watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
"Tens of millions effectively given to the Trump Campaign. This is what it was all about...," he added.
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