The Latest: Crowd gathers on the National Mall to hear Trump rally for America 250 kickoff

Also Wednesday, a federal judge permanently barred the Trump from implementing most of his first executive order on elections, part of which sought to require people to show documentary proof of citizenship when they register to vote. The judge agreed that the states and Congress have constitutional authority over elections, deeming Trump’s requirements a violation of the separation of powers.

And at a luncheon, Trump met with GOP senators who have grown increasingly frustrated by his diversions from the party’s agenda and his unclear Iran war strategy. Republican senators had hoped to use the housing bill Trump abandoned to show voters they care about affordability ahead of the November midterm elections.

The Latest:

It was just like a Trump rally — except it was much shorter

There was Christopher Macchio, the American tenor who has sung at a number of Trump’s events across the country. And Lee Greenwood sang “God Bless the U.S.A.” as the president took the stage, a Trump staple.

But the president himself spoke for only 28 minutes, a mere fraction of his political rally speeches, which often go on for 90 minutes or more.

Unlike “the weave,” a speech style Trump has said he uses to intersperse anecdotes into policy pronouncements, Trump stuck mostly to a script that bookended second-term accomplishments with a bit of American history.

Earlier Wednesday as he met with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office, Trump held forth for 45 minutes — talking for 12 minutes alone about the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool’s problems and crime-related issues.

Trump gives rundown of what’s to come for summer’s celebrations

Promising that the multiple flyovers seen Wednesday are only a “little tiny” bit of what’s to come in terms of military aircraft display, the president previewed other events coming to Washington this summer.

The showpiece, he said, will be a Fourth of July fireworks display “10 times larger than any that we’ve ever done in Washington or in the United States.”

Trump said he will speak that day as well and asked the crowd to “please show up.”

He also mentioned a rodeo — adding, “I love rodeo, I don’t know how they do it” — the Patriot Games and a Grand Prix race through Washington.

Trump highlights US raid in Venezuela, doesn’t mention earthquakes

Praising the U.S. military, the president described a “flawless and breathtaking” operation that led to the capture and arrest of President Nicolás Maduro in January.

He didn’t immediately mention the back-to-back earthquakes that hit Venezuela on Wednesday, including a 7.5-magnitude quake that collapsed buildings in Caracas.

The earthquakes hit roughly three hours before Trump took the stage for his rally.

Trump describes his ballroom project as new monument for 250th anniversary

The president has tried out a number of arguments to make the case for his proposed ballroom at the White House. Now he’s describing it as a monument to honor the country’s founding.

He put it in a lineage of other U.S. monuments created around national anniversaries, including the Statue of Liberty, the Washington Monument and the National Air and Space Museum.

“We are likewise building new monuments to American greatness to serve every future president and first lady,” Trump said at his rally on the National Mall. “We’re building the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world, right at the White House.”

Near the Reflecting Pool, Trump tells National Mall how it was ‘gruesomely vandalized’

Ten minutes into his National Mall remarks, the president was back on one of his favorite topics of late: the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

“It’s been gruesomely vandalized by thugs, bad people,” he said, adding that suspects had “largely been caught and are being prosecuted.”

Earlier in the day, he took a 12-minute detour during an Oval Office meeting with NATO’s secretary general to talk about the “sick people” he said sliced portions of the lining.

Trump’s troubled $14-million-plus rehabilitation project for the century-old pool has become a visceral flashpoint over law enforcement, aesthetics and environmental concerns ahead of the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations.

The Reflecting Pool has been drained, painted and plagued with algae bloom, with pieces of the new coating appearing to peel off the bottom.

Trump swiftly pivots to Iran war

After a brief introduction honoring America’s founding, Trump quickly turned the topic to the Iran war.

Trump brought up an agreement last week that will extend a ceasefire while the U.S. and Iran negotiate over how to end the war.

Even as important details remain unsolved, Trump framed it as a victory.

“We signed a historic agreement to end the conflict with Iran, fully open the Strait of Hormuz and accomplish what no president has ever been able to accomplish before,” Trump said to cheers.

Trump gives ‘a very big hello to America’ in National Mall remarks

The president took the stage as Lee Greenwood, a staple at his political rallies and other events, sang his signature song, “God Bless the U.S.A.” He shook hands with the president as he hit the closing portion.

Trump greeted the crowd by recalling how the Founding Fathers “changed the world forever and ever with a thing called the Declaration of Independence.”

The president swiftly moved into recounting the strengths of the American economy and military.

Before Trump takes the stage, the lawn is almost full

From where Trump will stand on stage, he may be able to see the giant Ferris wheel alit in neon colors in front of the Capitol.

People are standing shoulder to shoulder filling up most of the lawn as the sun starts to set. Most have their phones out to record.

Retired Navy SEAL recounts American ‘will to win’ its freedom

Author and podcaster Jocko Willink walked attendees on the National Mall through the colonies’ underdog fight against the British during the American Revolution.

That victory, he said, “unleashed a force which to this day has been completely unmatched in the world.” He went on to enumerate hard-fought privileges including “the freedom to speak, to protest, to worship, the freedom to protect ourselves, our families and our property.”

Something Willink didn’t mention was the contribution of the French, whose military forces and funds helped make significant strides toward Britain’s defeat.

All about the flyovers

Hattie Harris was visiting her uncle in northern Virginia when her niece who works on Capitol Hill told her of Wednesday’s event.

Harris, a Montessori teacher from Mesa, Arizona, had no idea what the program included — besides one thing.

“I came for the flyovers,” she said. “I will drop everything for flyovers.” The military aircraft buff didn’t even know Trump was expected to speak.

At that moment, she pointed overhead and cried, “Look!” The stealth B-2 bomber cruised overhead, drowning out the U.S. Marine Corps Band.

Asked her thoughts about the evening’s featured speaker — after she learned it was Trump — Harris shrugged.

First responders and victims of 9/11 are remembered at rally

The rally shifted from up-tempo pop performances to a more somber moment as Frank Siller, CEO of Tunnel to Towers, asked the crowd to remember firefighters and other first responders who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, attack.

Siller’s nonprofit was founded in honor of his brother, Stephen Siller, a New York firefighter who died on 9/11.

“As I look out at this incredible gathering of families celebrating everything that makes this country so great, we must remember the extraordinary sacrifices of ordinary people,” Frank Siller said.

It was one of the first moments of the rally focused on important events in U.S. history.

Trump is frustrated gasoline prices don’t mirror oil’s decline. Experts say it’s not that simple

U.S. gasoline prices decreased an average of 49 cents a gallon in the last month as expectations rose for an end to the war with Iran. But they’re not falling fast enough for Trump.

Trump, who wants to stave off the economic fallout of the war ahead of midterm elections, is now pointing at oil companies as the culprit. The president said on social media early Wednesday that he had tasked the Justice Department with investigating whether “customers are being ’gouged.’”

“The big Oil Companies are not dropping their price at the pump commensurate with the sharply lower prices they are paying for Oil,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post published just after midnight. “Gasoline prices better start going down a lot faster than what I’m seeing!”

Crude oil is the main ingredient in gasoline, and its cost makes up the bulk of what consumers pay. Even after crude prices come down, it can take weeks or longer for market changes to reach consumers, experts said.

▶ Read more

The grassy area is starting to fill in

About an hour before Trump’s speech, the grassy area on the National Mall was about half full.

The crowd cheered as the U.S. Marine Corps Band was drowned out temporarily as two fighter jets roared overhead.

A chance to see the president

Jacob Wankasky and his family, from Buffalo, New York, peeled off a day early from a trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania, when he and his wife Jennifer realized they could see Trump before a planned visit Thursday to the State Fair with their children, ages 4 and 6.

“The fact that we can be here with our kids. It’s a once in a lifetime chance,” Wankasky said as his wife and children sat in the sun-splashed grass of the National Mall listening to the Marine Corps Band’s rendition of “Stars and Stripes Forever.”

“It’s unpurchasable,” he said.

Wearing a bright red “America Is Back” cap, Wankasky, a 42-year-old antique mall owner, said Trump’s return to the White House was a relief in a time of “insanity.”

“I don’t know if our country could have taken another four years of Biden or whoever,” he said. Trump “stopped a freight train.”

Some see the event as a chance for the country to come together

While some on the National Mall traveled many hours to get there, Joe and Natalie Cox took the metro from Arlington, Virginia. They came “out of curiosity and to mark an historic occasion,” Joe said.

The couple said the event was an opportunity to take stock of “the necessary sea change” that Trump’s return to the White House represents.

“We could hardly skip it,” Natalie said. “We live 4 miles away.”

Joe, a retired Army officer and military contractor, and Natalie, who worked for 30 years at the Red Cross, suggested the events were a time for the country to come together.

With Frankie Valli pouring from the stage speakers, Joe, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he approved of the war against Iran.

“It had to be done,” he said. “I’ll be glad to no longer hear ‘Death to America.’”

VIPs are on chairs near the stage

The lead-up to the program had very much the feel of an outdoor summer concert.

The rows of chairs nearest to the stage filled up with VIPs, as the grass slowly populated with attendees sitting on blankets.

All sorts of flag-themed outfits, from overalls to skirts and hats, were common, as well as the “Make America Great” hats that have become the unofficial uniform of Trump’s political rallies going back a decade

The scene at the National Mall ahead of Trump’s rally

Karen and Brian Ontrap drove more than 500 miles from northwest Ohio with their children, having planned the trip in January to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary and, for some in the group, see Washington for the first time.

The rally on the mall “was a bonus,” said Karen Ontrap, a 51-year-old customer service representative for an aluminum casting company.

Standing in the shade near the stage where Trump was to speak, she said the pair support the president “100 percent.”

They were among the early arrivals to the section of the National Mall that was cordoned off, with a concert-style stage festooned in U.S. flags at one end and a mock White House exterior at the other.

Trump refuses to sign bipartisan housing bill into law. What does that mean for homebuyers, renters?

A sprawling legislative package aimed at lowering the cost of housing and spurring more home construction won bipartisan approval from Congress this week. But it hit a major roadblock in becoming law: President Donald Trump.

The White House supported the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, but on Wednesday Trump canceled the signing ceremony for the bill, saying he would not sign the measure until Congress passes legislation that would require proof of citizenship for all voters.

The measure is the culmination of months of negotiations by lawmakers who combined dozens of bills meant to address how housing affordability for both renters and aspiring homeowners in the U.S. has grown increasingly out of reach for many Americans.

The bill would reduce federal regulations, streamline environmental reviews, speed up the construction process and curb the influence of corporate landlords by limiting their ability to purchase single-family homes.

▶ Read more

Pentagon restores mandatory flu shots for all recruits as boot camp outbreak sickens nearly 300

The Pentagon said Wednesday that boot camps for all the military services are once again requiring the flu vaccination for all recruits after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made the shot optional for the military at the end of April.

The development, confirmed to The Associated Press by a Pentagon official, comes amid a growing, weekslong, flu outbreak at the U.S. Air Force’s boot camp at Lackland Air Force Base that has sickened nearly 300 people. However, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details not cleared for public release, maintained that the permission to mandate the vaccinations was unrelated to the outbreak.

When Hegseth first announced the repeal of the flu vaccine mandate in April, citing “medical autonomy” and religious freedom, he allowed the services to ask for exceptions — or permission to keep the vaccine mandatory — within 15 days of the rollout.

— Konstantin Toropin and Mike Stobbe

▶ Read more

Showing off the Trump flattery he’s famous for, Rutte praises the president as tough on defense contactors

The NATO chief said of the contractors: “You have been very harsh with them a couple of weeks ago.”

“I had one of them over in my office. He was still trembling,” Rutte said. “And I said, this is good. This is exactly what I need.”

The president has held a series of meetings with Pentagon officials and leading military contractors at the White House in recent days, discussing ways to increase munitions production after the war in Iran raised concerns about the U.S. eating into its stocks of missiles.

Rutte met with Trump in the Oval Office and, as he usually does, praised Trump in hopes that he won’t make good on threats to pull the U.S. out of NATO.

Vance says he’s working with the Pentagon to ensure Turkey can legally get F-35 jets

“There are certain things that we have to certify have happened that have happened in order to comply with American law,” the vice president said.

“We’re running the traps and confirming that it’s happened. This is really a congressional thing and ensuring that Turkey has complied with American law so they can get the F-35s.”

On the Iran school strike, Trump says, ‘I don’t think it’s gonna be us’

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters that the findings of a Pentagon investigation into a missile strike on an Iranian primary school on Feb. 28, the first day of the war with Iran, would be released “when the appropriate time is right.”

But Trump said he’s “seen nothing to lead me to believe it was us.”

Trump called the incident “horrible” but said: “I don’t know that they’re ever going to solve that problem in terms of whose fault was it, because there were missiles flying all over the place.”

Trump says major oil companies are ‘possibly gouging’ on prices

The president fleshed out his plans for a Justice Department investigation into why gasoline prices have not fallen as quickly as oil futures after the signing of an interim deal for talks to end the Iran war.

“The oil companies are possibly gouging,” Trump said. “I hope they’re not. Otherwise they’re going to be in big trouble. They’re going to be in big trouble. We’re not going to play games.”

The president indicated that his targets for any inquiry would be some of the world’s leading energy companies, including firms he has hosted at the White House.

“So it’s ExxonMobil, it’s Chevron, it’s Shell, it’s BP,” he said. “It’s a lot of them.”

Pressed on what he wants NATO allies to do, Trump says: ‘Just be loyal’

“We don’t need their money we don’t need anything,” the president said during his meeting with NATO’s chief. “We have the most powerful military in the world by far. But I just want loyalty.”

He added: “We’re always fighting for them.”

Trump has sharply criticized NATO and renewed his threats to leave the alliance after complaining that its members did not do enough to support the U.S. during the war with Iran.

Trump says Zelenskyy is ‘doing pretty well’

Calling Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “courageous,” the president also acknowledged ongoing losses among both Ukrainian and Russian forces in the war, now in its fifth year.

“He’s holding his own at least,” Trump said. “A lot of people dying on both sides, but I think he’s doing pretty well.”

Ukraine’s General Staff said Wednesday that its forces struck a major natural gas processing plant and two key satellite communications centers in the latest nighttime attacks on Russia.

Ukraine’s aerial campaign targeting energy facilities and military industries has intensified as Kyiv builds bigger and better long-range weapons to fight Russia’s invasion.

In response, Zelenskyy has said Moscow has ordered redeployment of some air defense systems from Russian regions to the capital and to Crimea’s Kerch Bridge, a crucial link for supplying Russian troops.

Trump says he’s only going to NATO summit in Turkey ‘out of respect’ for its host

He said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan phoned him and asked him to attend the defense alliance summit in the capital of Ankara in July.

“He said, ‘Please, I have it in Turkey. You got to be there. The United States has to be there,’” Trump told reporters. “And so I’m going out of respect to President Erdogan.”

Trump said of Erdogan: “I like him. He’s a friend of mine.”

He said he was glad Turkey stayed out of the war with Iran.

A reporter asked Trump if he would come to Turkey with a “gift bag” of fighter jets for Erdogan.

“I think so,” Trump responded. “I’m going to probably do something that’s going to make him very happy.”

White House asks Congress for $87.6 billion for Iran war, aid to US farmers and responding to Ebola crisis

The White House has formally requested the funding mostly to replenish the Pentagon after the war against Iran.

It submitted the request to Congress at a politically difficult time, as a majority of lawmakers have objected to any further military action.

The Office of Management and Budget sent the supplemental spending request Wednesday.

▶ Read more

Trump suggests that, until recently, visiting NATO chief would have been mugged in Washington

Talking up his deployment of National Guard troops in the city, the president pointed to Rutte and said that had the NATO chief come two years ago, “you had a good chance of being mugged, although you’re a very big guy.”

“They would have mugged him up. They would have beaten the hell out of him,” Trump said to laughs.

He further suggested that going to dinner two years ago, Rutte might have been “robbed when he got into the restaurant.”

The president has bragged for months about troops dramatically lowering Washington’s crime. Their presence has had little demonstrable effect on reducing the kinds of violent crime Trump warned Rutte about, however.

As Rutte looks on, Trump takes 12-minute detour to talk about Reflecting Pool and crime

Saying “sick people” used razors and box cutters to slice portions of the lining, Trump said Wednesday that part of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool would be drained again for repairs.

He wasn’t sure if that would come before or after the July 4 holiday, during which thousands of people will be in the area.

Trump said six people have been arrested over damage, which he characterized as a “350-foot gash” in the lining.

The troubled $14-million-plus rehabilitation project has become a visceral flashpoint over law enforcement, aesthetics and environmental concerns ahead of the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations.

The century-old Reflecting Pool has been drained, painted and plagued with algae bloom, with pieces of the new coating appearing to peel off the bottom.

Trump asked about cancellation of housing bill signing

Asked on Wednesday if he’d be willing to work out a deal to get the housing bill signed, Trump pushed for the lowering of interest rates and also reiterated his push for a measure to introduce new voter identification requirements.

“Lower the interest rates, you can have all the housing you want,” Trump said.

Earlier Wednesday, Trump said he had called off a planned signing for a bipartisan measure to increase home construction until passage of the SAVE America Act.

The cancellation was awkward for Capitol Hill Republicans, including House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who had just described the measure as a “really important bill to lower housing costs” before Trump called off the signing.

Sanders says election results show voters reject ‘establishment politics’

Bernie Sanders recently campaigned in New York alongside Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The Vermont senator said Tuesday’s victories by Mamdani-backed candidates prove Americans are “saying enough is enough.”

“You want a government that represents ordinary people, not just the rich,” he told reporters on Capitol Hill. “That’s what last night was about. That’s what we’ve seen for the last number of months. I think you’re going to continue to see it.”

Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from neighboring Connecticut, said voters are “clearly telling us they want us to be bolder,” but also cautioned against reading too much into the results.

“Obviously, in New York, the mayor and AOC have enormous power inside the Democratic Party today,” he said. “I’m not sure that election would reproduce itself; those results would reproduce themselves in every other state.”