MSNBC host Chris Matthews suggested on his show Wednesday night that President Trump could be violating the Declaration of Independence with his Fourth of July celebration.
“Tomorrow we celebrate the high human standards of our founders. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” Matthews began, recalling the opening of the nation’s founding document. “The Fourth of July is therefore because of these words, essentially the celebration of American ideals, of equality, of national unity, of freedom from a bullying government, of the dignity of the individual person.”
Trump’s “Salute to America” event is scheduled to feature fireworks, music, military flyovers, tanks, and a presidential speech at the Lincoln Memorial, though storms threaten to rain on the parade. Many have accused the president of politicizing the holiday.
“Yet it is on this Fourth of July and in this city that this president has decreed that a procession of combat tanks will line the capital, while the president speaks to the nation flanked by the country’s highest-ranking military chiefs,” he added. “For the first time in the history of our democratic republic, we are being instructed to honor not the values of our Declaration of Independence, but the power of the military and, this must be said, the grandeur of Donald J. Trump’s personal self. There is, of course, a danger being risked in such a promenade tomorrow.”
Matthews then warned that violence could ensue between those who are supportive of the president’s celebration and those who are against it. Members of the Proud Boys and antifa are expected to show up, according to Quartz.
