Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has admitted he has little insight into what’s happening with the Freedom 250 celebrations after Trump threatened to cancel them in an online tantrum.
Burgum, who is a member of the White House’s 250 organization, appeared on State of the Union Sunday, and was asked about whether the concerts would be canceled following five artists dropping out.
“Uh, I don’t know that that’s going to be the case,” he admitted, before arguing that the concerts were just “one event” in a “15-day-long celebration.”
Host Dana Bash then asked about Trump’s knee-jerk plans to replace the Great American State Fair with a MAGA rally hosted by the president himself. “Is that going to be a standard political rally?” she questioned.
Burgum, while arguing against concerns of partisanship, said: “Well, I think President Trump... uh, it’s important that whoever would be president of the country at the 200th, the 150th, the 100th, the 250th, the president plays a key figure in helping to, uh, again, celebrate, kick off and be at the opening of these events. It’s very appropriate. President Trump is going to beat dozens of events.”
“He called it Make America Great Again, which is the name of his political organization,” CNN host Bash pointed out.
Rather than address whether the “rally” would be political or not, Burgum suggested that in this context, “MAGA” alluded to the beautification of Washington.
“Well, it is, but that’s also something, I think that is something we all can certainly understand, which is in what we’re doing here in DC,” he said.
Burgum added that Trump inherited “decay and deterioration” of Washington’s monuments, with Americans becoming “conditioned to live in squalor.”
Several artists have pulled out of Trump’s Freedom 250 celebrations, claiming that the event seems to be more partisan than originally made clear.
In response, Trump lashed out on Truth Social Saturday: “I understand artists are getting ‘the yips’ having to do with their performance on Wednesday, so I am thinking about bringing the Number One Attraction anywhere in the world...”
He was, of course, referring to himself, adding in a later post: “We should have a giant MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN RALLY, for 250, instead of having overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear, whose music is boring, and yet who do nothing but complain.”
