Trump’s Mount Rushmore Speech

President Donald Trump opened America’s 250th independence anniversary celebrations with a roughly 30-minute address at Mount Rushmore, using the July 4 eve event to praise U.S. history, the military and American exceptionalism. Speaking beneath the carved faces of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, Trump called communism a “mortal threat” to liberty and said the United States would “never be a Communist country.” He linked the warning to recent Democratic socialist primary victories and said, “You can be a communist, or you can be a patriot, you cannot be both.” The program ended with a fireworks display.