DC Mayor Bowser 'concerned' tanks will rip up streets in Army parade
The Army has since told reporters it did not expect damage to the streets, and would cover the cost of any distressed asphalt. Thick metal plates will be placed over turns on the tanks' parade route to protect the roads, according to Army officials.
But Bowser said at a May 29 news conference she worried the city would have to shoulder those repairs and wait around for the Pentagon to reimburse.
"I remain concerned about it," she said. "These are, for the most part, local streets, and if they're rendered in unusable, we have to make them usable."
"Probably we would fix it and then go seek our money from the Fed," she said. "That gives me some concern about fronting costs and waiting for them to get back."
More: Trump's getting his military parade. Here's what they look like from France to Russia
The parade - which falls on President Donald Trump's 79th birthday - is a pressure point between Bowser and Trump, who clashed over Trump's push for a similarly huge military parade in his first term.
Trump announced in 2018 that he had canceled his plans for the earlier parade, blaming Bowser and "local politicians" for jacking up the price tag to $21 million.
"The local politicians who run Washington, D.C. (poorly) know a windfall when they see it," he tweeted.
Bowser hit back that she "finally got thru to the reality star in the White House with the realities" of the cost.
This time around, Bowser has held back from criticizing the upcoming parade, which will likely cost more than twice as much as the 2018 estimate - up to $45 million, according to the Army.
The Army said May 21 the parade will feature 28 Abrams tanks and twice as many armored vehicles rolling down a strip of Constitution Avenue north of the National Mall.
Historic fighter planes and at least 50 helicopters will fly overhead. Army parachutists, called the Golden Knights, will sail down and one will present a folded flag to Trump, who will speak from a presidential booth, USA TODAY previously reported.
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Daily Mirror
42 minutes ago
- Daily Mirror
7 unhinged Donald Trump moments as he makes shocking remark about Biden's cancer
As we bid farewell to Elon Musk as a semi-on the books government employee, Trump managed to offend cancer sufferers and double steel tariffs all while failing to rule out a pardon for Diddy. Just another quiet day in Trump world So, farewell Elon Musk. Kind of. His 130 days are up, and he can no longer stay on as a "special government employee" without making transparency declarations. So he's heading back try and dig Tesla out of the hole he's dug for it. Prior to getting involved with Trump he was mostly known as a rich weirdo who kept having babies with different women. Now he's trashed even that deeply mid reputation with a ruthless and broadly speaking useless campaign of terrorising well-meaning government employees, claiming to be in search of "fraud" and "abuse" of government funds. While he has found next to none of the above, he did manage to shut down a bunch of programmes that the American people like and rely upon, but Republican politicians hate. So time well spent, eh? Meanwhile, Donald Trump said he doesn't feel sorry for an old man with cancer. He doubled tariffs on steel and aluminium. And he wouldn't rule out giving Diddy a pardon. Just a quiet Friday night for the Trump administration. Here's what you need to know. 1. Trump says he doesn't feel sorry for cancer-stricken Biden In case anyone was wondering whether Donald Trump was capable of being a decent human being, let alone serving as President, he said the following during a press conference in the Oval Office last night. "He's been sort of a moderate person over his lifetime, not a smart person, but a somewhat vicious person, I would say." He went on: "If you feel sorry for him, don't feel so sorry, because he's vicious. "What he did with his political opponent [Trump, whom Biden had the temerity to beat soundly in an election], and all of the people that he hurt. He hurt a lot of people, Biden. "I really don't feel sorry for him." You stay classy, Donald. 2. 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'They breached the phone; they tried to impersonate her,' Trump told reporters on Friday. 'Nobody can impersonate her. There's only one Susie.' Get Donald Trump updates straight to your WhatsApp! As tension between the White House and Europe heats up, the Mirror has launched its very own US Politics WhatsApp community where you'll get all the latest news from across the pond. We'll send you the latest breaking updates and exclusives all directly to your phone. Users must download or already have WhatsApp on their phones to join in. All you have to do to join is click on this link, select 'Join Chat' and you're in! We may also send you stories from other titles across the Reach group. We will also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose Exit group. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. The FBI warned in a public service announcement this month of a "malicious text and voice messaging campaign" in which unidentified "malicious actors" have been impersonating senior U.S. government officials. The scheme, according to the FBI, has relied on text messages and AI-generated voice messages that purport to come from a senior U.S. official and that aim to dupe other government officials as well as the victim's associates and contacts. 'Safeguarding our administration officials' ability to securely communicate to accomplish the president's mission is a top priority,' FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement Friday. It is unclear how someone gained access to Wiles' phone, but the intrusion is the latest security breach for Trump staffers. 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Belfast Telegraph
an hour ago
- Belfast Telegraph
Iran has increased stockpile of highly enriched uranium, watchdog says
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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE DOGE loses its head Elon Musk but his 'super-genius' nerd army troops are now inside the deep state
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As Trump bid farewell to Musk in the Oval Office, the billionaire wore a shirt describing himself as the 'Dogefather,' indicating his desire to be remembered as the father of a political movement he hoped would continue. 'This is not the end of DOGE but really the beginning,' he said, promising that the DOGE team would only get stronger. The president agreed. 'Elon's really not leaving, he's going to be back and forth i think ... it's his baby,' Trump said. Today, DOGE employees have been sent to different departments, and are quietly working within the system. Some of them view themselves as more missionaries than mercenaries, and even as Musk's public role fades, they expect the work to go on. The work of cutting government waste and dismantling the 'administrative state,' one of Bannon's biggest priorities, would continue in the Office of Management and Budget which is 'where DOGE is housed' to begin with, he said. OMB director, Russ Vought, who helped co-author Project 2025, remains engaged with the efforts, but ultimately the traditional hierarchy of the federal government has snapped back into place. Some of Trump's most visible cabinet members view the DOGE brand as a net positive, as they have worked to implement it into their departments. One DOGE 'agent' told Fox News host Jesse Watters in an interview that his work was thriving at the State Department with Secretary Marco Rubio. 'There are people in the State Department that will stop you, in all the agencies that we've been to that will stop you in the hallways or write emails and say I was scared to write this or I don't know if you were interested in this but they usually have great ideas, they usually have the best ideas,' he said. 'They often have the best ideas.' Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a memo on Friday giving the department's DOGE team 'the opportunity to provide input on all unclassified contracts' he noted proudly on Thursday. Even Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who famously clashed with Musk at the White House, has absorbed the DOGE effort into his department. 'The 'E' in DOGE is efficiency,' Bessent said in an interview. 'It's not elimination. It's not extinction. We are trying to make the government do better for the American people and right-size it.' The White House confirmed that the Trump administration would continue the job of DOGE in Musk's absence — even though it would effectively be the federal government. 'The DOGE leaders are each and every member of the president's cabinet and each and the president himself,' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday. The outsiders of DOGE have now been absorbed into the government or politely decided to leave. With the departure of its founder comes the end of the myth that Musk created - that somehow a group of outsider tech geniuses could fix the problems and root out government corruption and waste. Musk's efforts were impossible to ignore, fueled by a an excited MAGA base that was delighted with his antics. 'What is it you say you do here?' he asked, channeling the film Office Space by sending government employees an order to email him to prove their worth by asking them what they had accomplished that week. The decision to shutter USAID entirely won the respect from even the most cynical political interests, as cutting off the slush-fund for so many non-profits connected to left-wing causes signaled a major victory. At the White House, Musk's appearances at cabinet meetings symbolized the uncanny clash of two worlds - buttoned up bureaucrats vs the more free ranging tech genius of Silicon Valley. 'Even my hat has a hat,' Musk said, putting one of Trump's Gulf of America hats on top of his existing MAGA hat. 'Elon, I love the double hat, but he's the only one can do that, and get away with it,' Trump said, shaking his head. Musk's untraditional antics became the fodder of legends for some and cringe for others. 'I have become meme,' Musk declared at CPAC in February, wearing sunglasses and welding a bright shiny chainsaw given to him by Argentine President Javier Milei. 'This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy!' he shouted waving it in the air with enthusiasm. 'Yeah!' Musk was entranced by Milei's ability to capture the imaginations of not only his country but the entire world, as the chainsaw welding wild haired libertarian delivered a victory in 2023 against all odds. When Milei took power, he cut the number of government ministries, fired over 40,000 government employees, lowered inflation, cut reduced government spending, and dismantled large parts of the federal bureaucracy. Imagine what the United States, the birthplace of the idea of limited government could accomplish. But Musk's dreams of single-handedly slashing $2 trillion from the federal government fell short. It was limited government that ended up as the biggest block to Musk's dreams. Musk's experiment demonstrated that the power of the executive branch to make significant cuts is limited. Only Congress can deliver the trillions of dollars in savings that Musk so desperately wanted. After all, it is Congress that controls the power of the purse. With the dream of DOGE established, Musk indicated he was ready to leave. 'That's it really,' he said at the conclusion of his remarks on Friday, shrugging his shoulders.
