Rep. Luna: China is dangerous, behind funding of protests
(NewsNation) — Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican, announced the House Oversight committee will be calling China-based billionaire Neville Singham to testify regarding the funding of a group that organized protests in Los Angeles.
'If he refuses to appear, he will be subpoenaed, and if he ignores that, he will be referred to the DOJ for prosecution,' Luna said in a post on social platform X.
She alleged that the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a Communist political party to which Singham has previously donated, is also receiving funding from the Chinese Communist Party. The committee will be looking into links between Singham and the CCP, as well.
Luna joined NewsNation's 'CUOMO' on Wednesday to discuss the investigation. She said she believes Singham and the CCP are purposely trying to create division within the United States.
Hogg forgoes reelection for DNC vice chair
'I do believe the Chinese government knows what they're doing; they're smart and they're dangerous,' Luna said. She added that she believes they are creating a ruse with the protests and making Hispanic-Americans think the unrest going on is all about the recent ICE raids.
Luna said during the Biden administration, then-Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Lindsey Graham asked then-U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Singham over Foreign Agents Registration Act violations and ties to China, but the administration did not follow up.
'It's not just me, but the entire Oversight committee in Congress,' Luna said. 'This is a different administration. We are not playing games. What you are seeing in real time is things are heating up. China is not our friend.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Driving into Cheyenne from the west, Interstate 80 passes underneath a 40-foot-tall bust of Abraham Lincoln. At 8,000 feet above sea level, the taciturn likeness of the president who appointed political rivals to his cabinet during the Civil War sits at the highpoint of the Laramie Mountains, watching over the landscape as the road winds its way back down to Wyoming's high plains. The highway flows past scattered herds of pronghorn, miles of supplicatory wind turbines and the steaming skeleton of an oil recycling plant, most of which can be seen from miles away. I-80 is essentially a commuter road for the state, one that legislators from all over use every winter to reach Cheyenne, the state capital, for its alternating 20- or 40-day legislative sessions. One of 10 remaining citizen legislatures, Wyoming's elected officials meet for these short windows when they've taken time off from their primary jobs to propose, debate and vote on bills. It's an efficient cost-cutting measure for a state relatively low on funds. On a crisp Tuesday morning this past January — just six days before President Donald Trump's second inauguration — the state government convened at the state house for its 68th legislative session. It was an occasion of political significance, not just for the 'Cowboy State' or 'Equality State' (depending on who you're talking to), but for the whole nation. Last year, a majority of Freedom Caucus members were voted into power, gaining control of the state legislature. It's the first time that the populist national organization — which was founded during the Tea Party era but coalesced under Trump with members such as Jim Jordan, Mark Meadows and Lauren Boebert — has won a simple majority of seats in a U.S. legislative body. With such a dominant push rightward, Wyoming's government became an analog of national politics, offering insight into what Americans might expect from the country's shift in the same direction. 'The Republican Party as a whole in Wyoming is just growing more and more conservative. ... Business as usual doesn't work the way it used to,' said Jeremy Haroldson, the speaker pro tempore and a member of the Freedom Caucus. 'On the federal level, we're seeing that same renaissance. And as we're seeing those changes come … the Freedom Caucus will further align with the Republican Party as the Republican Party finds its roots again. And that's what needs to happen.' After the eight-week legislative session concluded, the Freedom Caucus had about as good a session as it could hope for, with most of its key agenda items becoming law. It was quite an achievement for a legislature with 26 new representatives — 42 percent of the House took the oath of office for the first time. Among hundreds of bills considered, the big wins involved national issues like immigration, election integrity and dismantling DEI-initiatives, but legislators also passed a significant property tax reduction bill, too. In the process, the legislature avoided most of what Gov. Mark Gordon said were the 'main issues facing Wyoming.' The things that fell to the wayside were a supplemental budget necessary for running the government, health care initiatives for mothers (Wyoming has limited access to obstetrics.), rehabilitation funding for a state ravaged by forest fire, and water issues, which are a priority for any upper-basin state. The caucus achieved its goals 'without basically any debate or discussion,' wrote Joan Barron, a columnist for the conservative-leaning Cowboy State Daily who's been reporting on Wyoming politics since 1970. Barron titled her legislative wrap-up op-ed 'Maybe Next Year Will Be Better.' In her reporting, she said that she saw some members struggle to read, let alone explain, some of the bills they proposed in committee meetings. Barron also discussed the rather overt influence of the Freedom Caucus lobby in the day-to-day act of legislating. 'They say they're not instructions, they're recommendations — but they're getting it from either their regional or the national caucus,' Barron said. A fiscal conservative with a practical streak, Gordon has consistently ranked among America's most popular governors — the most popular in 2020. He is a lifelong Republican, as well as a supporter of Trump and the MAGA movement, but he does not see eye-to-eye with the Freedom Caucus. In 2024, Gordon vetoed several bills and budget items that the caucus championed. While he's willing to work with the new majority, he says that providing the much-needed constitutional balance is 'the job of the governor.' His public disputes over policy with the caucus continued this year when he vetoed seven more of its bills — of which the legislature used its majority to override five, putting them back into law. Gordon has described the caucus's agenda as, not a government closest to the people — meaning smaller, à la the conservatism of Ronald Reagan or William F. Buckley Jr. — but instead, a more centralized government that tells people what they can and cannot do. 'It's in direct opposition to the tradition of Wyoming,' says Gordon. 'Which is a very libertarian one.' Gordon thinks the state came out of the general legislative session better than expected, though he still called the result 'a bit disappointing.' As the year has progressed, however, the state's political battles are cascading into the off-season. The issues are, unsurprisingly, corollary to national discussions. The Freedom Caucus members want to 'DOGE' Wyoming's government, write a constitutional amendment abolishing all property tax and reassess the judicial appointment process. Judges in Wyoming are nominated by the executive branch so any changes would subvert Gordon's authority. Gordon described the legislature as, instead of having discussions about what is best for Wyoming, doing a lot of finger pointing, with a premium getting placed on sending off congratulatory press releases. Most significantly, he says, there is just a general lack of camaraderie. 'This was the first time that there just seemed to be genuine acrimony and an unwillingness to work together,' Gordon said. 'It speaks volumes to a lot of what's happening in politics around the country at this point.' 'As far as anyone around here can remember, there's never been one like it,' says Barron about this year's legislature. Not only did the understanding of what makes a 'conservative' slide more to the right, it also adopted certain habits of larger, centralized government. It also seems to be working. 'I call it an aberration, but it turns out it may be more than that,' Barron said. 'Because (the Freedom Caucus) did exceptionally well this session.' Defining 'conservatism' is as difficult in Wyoming as it is in the rest of the country. The way that William F. Buckley Jr. or Russell Kirk used the term is different from the way Trump supporters use it today. Despite these differences, MAGA politicians, Freedom Caucus members and the Wyoming governor all use the same word to describe their core governing principles. Gordon once asked a political consultant what the word meant and was told that 'conservative' was defined by whomever was shouting it the loudest. 'That's really unfortunate,' Gordon said. 'It's a word that certainly can be bandied about, but my concern is then — this is just maybe the way politics are — you almost remove meaning when you don't have it well-defined." Gordon believes that in addition to advocating for the smallest government, one closest to the people, conservative notions include prioritizing national defense, shouldering your own tax burdens, and a balance between rights and responsibilities weighted toward the latter. But, his colleagues in the statehouse define it as in lockstep with MAGA policies, rather than the precedents from history that Gordon referenced. George Nash, a historian and author who specializes in the conservative movement, wrote that 'the most important fact to assimilate about modern conservatism is that it is not, and has never been, monolithic. It is a coalition — a coalition built on ideas— with many points of origin and diverse tendencies that are not always easy to reconcile." He described the three primary coalitions with the 20th century's conservative movement as the 'libertarians' who focused on individual freedom above all else, 'traditionalists' who argued for a return to 'religious and ethical absolutes and a rejection of moral relativism,' and anti-communists, locked in 'a titanic struggle with an implacable adversary.' Even still, he wrote that the conservative movement was clearly defined by its rejection of New Deal-era policies, although within that collective opposition, they shared a prioritization of free-market economics, individual liberty and traditional religious values. It was Ronald Reagan, Nash argues, who brought libertarianism, traditionalism, anticommunism and the Religious Right all under the one 'big tent' of the Republican Party. This comes from a paper Nash wrote in 2016 titled 'Populism, I: American conservatism and the problem of populism.' The paper argued that as a 'coalition,' the conservative movement has 'the potential for splintering — and never more so than" with the emergence of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate. Despite the differences between the two movements, there's still enough continuity between MAGA and more classic notions of conservatism — lower taxes, the 'America First' rhetoric and especially minimizing the size and scale of the federal government — that Nash understands this sea change not as a break but a 'reformulation.' In other words, the MAGA movement is not a continuation, per se, of the conservative movement, but constitutes a whole new era of it. Scott Heiner, the House's new majority floor leader and a founding member of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, for example, thinks there's no difference between the conservatism of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus and Donald Trump's MAGA movement. In response to a question about defining the idea of 'conservatism' — and if there are any distinctions between MAGA and Freedom Caucus principles — Heiner wrote, 'Conservative state lawmakers are fully aligned with President Trump's vision of ushering in a new golden age for America.' Even if there is a significant amount of overlap in the respective policies, Gordon does not see the two as in lockstep. At the national level, it's Freedom Caucus members who are frustrated and voicing opposition to elements of the president's 'Big, Beautiful Bill.' Gordon also remembers 'a certain amount of pride' from the caucus at the Republican National Convention for opposing parts of the Republican — i.e. the MAGA — platform. The state's caucus is also opposed to Gordon's renewable energy initiatives — it's nearly an understatement to say that Wyoming is heavily reliant on its extractive energy industry — which is part of Trump's efforts in 'Unleashing American Energy.' The president of the state's Freedom Caucus, Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, wrote in response to the same questions posed to Heiner: 'There's a reason Donald Trump won the popular vote. There's also a reason the WYFC won a majority in the Wyoming House of Representatives. We share the same vision for Wyoming and for America. We want to unleash our Wyoming energy and become truly energy independent; we want girls sports to be for real girls; we want normalcy; we want to reduce the size and scope of government. The WYFC supports Trump's agenda.' For the governor, state government that is small in size but centralized in Cheyenne is just as problematic as the federal government based in Washington making decisions for states. Taking the word of whatever a conservative think tank in Texas, Florida, Missouri or D.C. comes up with and allowing it to become the 'coin of the realm' is something Gordon would like to move on from. 'I'm hoping that we have a rebound to the conservatism that really is about limited government, closest to the people, not about who tells you what to do or whether we can tell everybody else how they should behave, but one that really focuses on local government, individual rights and individual responsibility,' he said. He added: 'Power is intoxicating, and I think that it's always easy to judge others.' Gordon still sees a populist hinge to what the Freedom Caucus is putting forward, which he understands to be 'almost by definition, kind of progressive.' Haroldson, however, just thinks that they're acting on behalf of their constituents. 'We're listening to the people. Is it progressive? Sadly enough, it shouldn't be,' Haroldson said. 'But it is, because it hasn't been done.' 'We like to say that Wyoming is the 'light on the hill' that others can look toward,' said Heiner, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who lives in Afton, Wyoming. 'We have always said that we're a very conservative state, but we haven't acted that way. The actual legislature or state government has been very purple influence from other states, and it hasn't reflected upon the conservative nature of the citizens of Wyoming.' From the vantage of the Freedom Caucus, who describe Democrats and Republicans alike as part of a 'uniparty' dedicated to big government and less concerned about individual liberty, Heiner's assessment may be true. But, when compared to the rest of the country, Wyoming's politics are still to the right of the Republican or traditional 'conservative' spectrum. Before Wyoming was admitted into the union, the territory was the first in the nation to grant women suffrage in 1869. When it became a state in 1890, it had the first constitution in the world enshrining a woman's right to vote. For context, this came only five years after the Rock Springs Massacre, where locals murdered at least 28 Chinese workers and burned down their settlement amid concerns they were taking their mining jobs. By 1924, the state elected Nellie Tayloe Ross as the country's first ever female governor. Before Gordon, five of the last 10 governors were Democrats; the second longest-serving U.S. senator in Wyoming history was a Democrat as well. And, as part of its libertarian streak, the state maintains a laissez-faire attitude toward personal choice with individual health care decisions enshrined in the Wyoming constitution. Despite a concerted yearslong effort to ban it, abortion remains legal. Prior to the 1970s, there was more of a balance between the two parties, according to Phil Roberts, a professor of Wyoming history at the University of Wyoming, that mostly fell between democrats in the mining dominant counties and and republicans in agricultural dominant ones. But that all shifted long ago. Republicans have held a House legislature majority since 1965 and the Senate since 1937. Its citizens have voted for Republican presidents since 1952 (with the exception of Lyndon Johnson in '64), with nearly 70% of voters choosing Trump last November. Going back three presidential election cycles, Wyoming voted for Trump by the largest margin of any state in the nation. It has one of the lowest tax burdens, too — in part because of a mineral fund that's financed by taxes on coal and oil extraction, the state's largest industry. Ninety percent of its current legislature is Republican, and the state's partisan index rating is the highest in the country, with Republicans enjoying a plus-25 differential. The voters, Gordon thinks, believe in a variation of government that stays out of their stuff, lets them do what they need to do and doesn't — so to speak — tread on them. And rather than any reliance on the federal government, the focus is on local communities, school boards, county commissions and fire departments, he said. As such, in a state where so much of any livelihood is connected to natural resources, government regulation is seen as a stranglehold. With more than 80% of the population identifying as white, too, there's a certain homogeneity to the way social issues are considered. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, for example, wasn't recognized as a holiday in Wyoming until 1990, six years after the Reagan administration established it. Barron relayed some comments a former Democratic governor, Mike Sullivan, made about how the two parties had swapped places in the last 10 years. 'The Democrats were always regarded as the party of the working people,' she paraphrased Sullivan saying. 'Now that's the Republicans. And, of course, this caucus took over the whole Republican party.' After the first week of the legislative session, Rodriguez-Williams was excited by the progress her colleagues had made. They passed several of their bills onto the Senate and were hopeful to reach a goal of passing five bills in 10 days — a plan they called their 'Five and Dime' — which they did with relative ease. In that first week and after, there had been little discussion or debate over the bills introduced, and most moved to the Senate without amendment. The way Rodriguez-Williams understands compromise, she said, was that 'the Wyoming Freedom Caucus is always willing to work with moderates or the establishment and try to get them to come our way. … And so we're always willing to listen to them and hope that they do come our way, because our way is what the people want. We're interested in carrying out the mandate the people have asked us to do.' The mandate that Rodriguez-Williams referred to was a demonstrative win, but came following an election year with a low voter turnout — the lowest since the last time Trump was elected eight years ago. Due to the prevalence of the Republican Party in Wyoming, elections are often determined at the primaries. Last year, only 27% of eligible voters voted in the primary — a statistic that republicans like Gordon brought up, as did Democrat Rep. Karlee Provenza, who wrote an op-ed breaking them out. Based on Provenza's calculations from data provided by the state, of the 122,718 who voted in the primaries, only 42,943 cast ballots for Freedom Caucus candidates. That rising up of Wyomingites — or 'mandate' — comes from 9% of the state's total population, she wrote. The numbers doubled in the general election to 60% of the state's population casting ballots, but the stage was set before any of the caucus names appeared on that final ballot. It's hard to claim to be speaking for the people when more than 70% of voters didn't even weigh in. The Freedom Caucus is not a singular entity but a coalition of elected officials and lobbyists who are seeking a more conservative form of American government that's dedicated to a close reading of the Constitution and is inching closer to the smallest federal entity possible. There's no official roster published, and after vetting of a legislator's voting record, membership is by invitation only. The State Freedom Caucus Network (SFCN) was a natural next step for the House's Freedom Caucus as an expansion of its ideals into state government. Both are part of the same greater organization, focused on providing resources to help win electoral power at both the state and federal levels. As of this year, 13 different state houses have Freedom Caucuses, and the hope is to bring them to all 50. Andy Roth, the president of the State Freedom Caucus Networks, said Wyoming is a 'case study of how a Freedom Caucus can execute its mission perfectly.' Jessie Rubino started as the Wyoming state director for the SFCN in 2021 and, in the past four years, she's helped the caucus grow from six members to eight, then to 16, then 26, and now 36. She's a lifelong conservative, born and raised in Cheyenne, who taught high school in Casper before becoming a lawyer. As an undergraduate, she interned for Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso in D.C. — the only three months in her life that she hasn't lived in Wyoming. 'Unlike other lobbyists, I read every single bill that's filed, and I provide a summary of what it does and then a recommendation from the State Freedom Caucus Network,' Rubino said. Most of her time is spent researching and drafting amendments to bills on the floor as needed. But, depending on the day, Rubino said she's also 'helping strategize, helping our members understand the bills. Our members, especially now with the majority, they're spread really thin … so it's valuable to be able to give them a quick hit summary on all the bills that come through.' Rubino sends these summaries and suggestions over a group text thread, which has come under intense scrutiny. Opponents suggest that the national umbrella organization is providing local lawmakers with not only talking points but explicit directives on how to vote. The representatives themselves, however, explain it in practical terms. When Heiner was a freshman legislator in 2021, the bills came fast and were complex. 'You'll be talking about noxious weeds, and you're supposed to be an expert and then you'll switch into banking and trust laws and you're supposed to be an expert on that,' he says. 'I couldn't keep up.' Later that same year, Heiner was invited along with several other representatives to visit D.C. and learn more about the network. He was dubious about getting caught up in national politics but found that he was ideologically aligned with their investors and was surprised that the network had already vetted him. The SFCN explained that they offer research and resources — the services Rubino described — that could help the legislators manage the information deluge. 'That appealed to me,' Heiner says. But 'the narrative that's out there is that they tell us how to vote. … Well, I'm an alpha male. I will never sell my vote.' There may not be an explicit demand attached to each text message or policy explanation, but summaries of the legislation are filtered through the Freedom Caucus director. It's practical — larger legislative bodies like Congress, as well as the DNC and RNC, have administrative staff who do similar research — but some lawmakers, like Mike Yin, a Democrat from Teton County, who saw his colleagues reading from their phones during committee meetings, says that it suggests that the caucus members don't know what they are talking about when they look to text messages for answers. After months of these criticisms, Rodriguez-Williams in May wrote an op-ed in WyoFile, a local newsroom that covers state politics, lambasting the suggestion these practices are in any way nefarious. 'Vote recommendations are everywhere in the Capitol,' she wrote. It's a fair defense, but it doesn't explain the difficulty members had explaining bills, like what Barron described. Sen. Eli Bebout laments that current legislators, by not working with others outside their ideological camp, are not building the lasting relationships possible in state governments. In his time, he's seen a lot of different Wyoming legislatures, too. Bebout served as a state representative from 1987 to 2000 and then as a state senator from 2007 to 2020. But he began his career as a Democrat and as he found the Republicans increasingly more aligned with his perspectives over time, he switched parties in 1994. Bebout remembers when the state was so broke, and legislators — on either side of the aisle — had to accept that they were not going to get everything they wanted. He says they did what they thought was right for Wyoming 'collectively,' even if they 'argued like the dickens' about it. 'Legislating, in my opinion, was the art of compromise,' he says. This was a perspective Bebout shared with a good friend, Al Simpson, the longtime U.S. senator from Wyoming who — in a sense of dramatic timing that can only be chalked up to serendipity — passed away one week after this legislative session ended. His legacy was a testimony to the enduring power of legislative compromise. His landmark achievement? The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 that legalized undocumented immigrants. Famously not one to mince words, Simpson referred to the Freedom Caucus, according to one of his close friends, the journalist Barron, as a 'cult.' One of the things you have to decide as an elected official, Bebout says, is whether or not you believe that government has a place. In Wyoming, he said, it does. A legislator can't just 'go in there and slash and burn because you want to cut, cut, cut,' he says. 'No, you go in there and you analyze. You look at it, you think what's right and you try to do what's best for Wyoming. Sometimes being a conservative, you just don't say no to everything.' One of the most controversial bills this year was SF69, a tax reform bill that gave single family homes a 25% tax reduction on property worth up to $1 million. In Wyoming, property tax is tied to the current market value of a home, rather than the purchase price, and as home values have skyrocketed — going up more than 8% from 2023 to 2024 alone — so have owners' costs. At the 2024 legislative session, relief was offered in the form of refunds to reduce the tax burden families felt. This year's bill was a continuation of that effort. Haroldson says Wyoming's broader tax structure is 'beautifully' limited as it's tied to extractive industries and reduced after hard-fought battles but is incensed about property taxes. 'We're putting little old ladies on the street,' he says. 'They're losing lifetime homes, and that's unacceptable.' Despite this relief seeming straightforward enough, the bill was one of the few Freedom Caucus agenda items that navigated significant discussion and reform, with 35 different amendments coming from the House alone. It was initially proposed as a 50% reduction but was refigured after significant debate. The reason for so much concern is that the tax bill has no backfill, meaning that, instead of the larger state government, local municipalities reliant on those funds will be the ones taking the financial hit. With such a tax structure, this loss of income for the small towns of the state will be significant. Everything from mental health support programs, Meals on Wheels through education, firefighting and policing have the potential to be affected. Gordon sees this bill as the state government imposing itself on local governments, those even closer to those they govern. By signing this bill into law, he believes that the legislature is taking tools and votes out of the hands of both local governments and the state's citizens. He says it's an understandable temptation. Though it is lowering taxes, this big government making decisions for smaller governments does not strike him as a 'conservative' effort at all. The Freedom Caucus is advocating to make up the difference from the tax receipts received from oil, gas, coal and other minerals, too. 'To me, that's wealth substitution, and that's not conservative,' Gordon said. 'If you're going to get relief, you should give it to those people who pay the taxes.' Regardless, this is one of the laws that will likely do well with many constituents in Wyoming, who will appreciate a quarter of their tax bill getting trimmed off the top. But it still shows a fundamental difference in how the caucus understands conservatism. In remarks at the State of the State address in January, Gordon referenced the success of the Freedom Caucus and the attention it brought to the state. He reminded Wyoming's elected leaders of the system of checks and balances the Founding Fathers designed to defend the branches of government against the temptation for one to usurp the other's power. 'We are heirs to their wisdom, and Wyoming expects us to work together.' Today, that wisdom seems less important than ensuring that your political interests are met — that the 'mandate' given by the voters is upheld, even if it means legislating without compromise, without leaning into the nuance of the issues your constituents face. If it comes down to it, too, there is a valuable lesson from the nation's history, both the Revolutionary and the Civil War, that is perpetually relevant. In times of division, it is OK to 'fight' to ensure your needs are met — be that with trade partners, those crossing the border illegally, or with your fellow legislators. 'The other states and the rest of the nation will watch because they saw what's happened with the Trump reelection. People don't want the direction we were headed. They want a change,' says Heimer. 'Wyoming can be the point of that spear. This is what can happen in your state if you also rise up and grab your muskets and go and defend your state and protect your flank. … And I hope it happens that way.' Gordon thinks this approach of the Freedom Caucus's steamrolls nuance and oversimplifies the very complicated matters that the state government is responsible to legislate. He suggested that once some of the newer legislators gain some more experience, they might see things differently. 'Really, there's a degree of gray in those policy distinctions that, in the fullness of time, they'll have to come to grips with,' Gordon said. Gordon's constitutional suggestions may not have stuck — the advice of elders rarely gets through before experience comes along and enforces it — but he was right about the attention paid to the legislature. With that attention, there's at least one very exciting result. It reminded the governor of a joke a former governor told him about elections: Why do more people buy elk licenses in Wyoming than vote? It's because they like what they get a whole lot more. There are a lot more people in Wyoming paying attention to state government now than years prior — who knows if they really like what they're getting. Maybe after this year and next, the number of voters who show up in the primaries might grow beyond the 27% who did in 2024. Whatever that means for who wins elections, Gordon said, 'will be interesting to see.' Either way, 'I have come to understand that we aren't living in the same Wyoming that I grew up in,' he said.
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38 minutes ago
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Advertisement Defense officials and the White House have justified the cost as a worthy expense to pay tribute to service members and inspire patriotism, and Trump has called it 'a great expenditure.' 'We're going to have to try and top it' Outside of wartime, there isn't much of a tradition of military parades in the U.S., with some critics likening the planned pageantry to the jingoistic displays seen in North Korea. But Trump's inspiration was the 2017 Bastille Day procession he attended in France, which he declared at the time to be 'magnificent' and 'one of the greatest parades I have ever seen.' 'We're going to have to try and top it,' he said then. With the parade now set to occur on his 79th birthday, Trump said he is 'taking a little heat' over the overlapping occasions. But he said the festivities are meant to celebrate the Army and Flag Day, not his birthday. His imprint Saturday will be clear, though. Trump requested aircraft and military equipment that capture the might of the military, according to the White House. He is expected to view the synchronized flyovers, along with the processions of tanks, historical reenactments and marching soldiers, from a special reviewing stand. Toward the end of the day's events, he is set to deliver remarks during a nationally televised ceremony capped by fireworks. One of Trump's favorite musical acts, " God Bless the USA" singer Lee Greenwood, is on tap to perform. Greenwood's song is one of the president's preferred walk-on tunes at events. The singer has performed in person at campaign rallies, and Trump even partnered with Greenwood on a business deal to sell 'God Bless the USA' Bibles for $59.99. Advertisement Protests expected to counter the military show Though the president has blown past the logistical and financial barriers that stopped his parade in the past, the pageantry still is expected to draw pushback. With predictions of as many as 200,000 attendees, the Secret Service is preparing for protests by erecting 18 miles of anti-scale fencing and deploying drones to the city's skies to keep watch. Multiple protests to counter the event were being planned, including a march to the White House. Immigration-related clashes between protesters and law enforcement in Los Angeles have spread to other cities this week and heightened the possibility of tensions in the Washington area. The president this week said that if protesters show up at the parade, 'they will be met with very big force.' It was not clear what he meant by that remark, but it added to the alarm of critics who claim the policies of Trump's administration and the planned lavish display of militarism smack of authoritarian politics. Organizers of 'No Kings' protests are planning demonstrations around the country Saturday to counter an event they contend is meant to feed Trump's ego. 'The flag doesn't belong to President Trump. It belongs to us,' the 'No Kings' website says. But they're not planning to hold an event in Washington. Instead, their flagship event will be in Philadelphia, and organizers said they hope to draw attention away from what they paint as a strongman spectacle designed for Trump's birthday, like a king. Trump laughed off the idea Thursday. 'I don't feel like a king,' he said. 'I have to go through hell to get stuff approved.' ___ Associated Press writers Darlene Superville and Chris Megerian contributed to this report.
