Leaders of the veterans group Rolling Thunder are poised to roar back to Washington to defend President Trump if Democrats move to impeach him.
They say Trump hasn’t changed their mind about ending their annual massive Memorial Day biker gathering. But some bikers will be back to demand House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., halt impeachment proceedings if she cranks them up.
“I think he’s doing a great job, and I wish Nancy Pelosi and her cronies would get off his back,” executive director Artie Muller said Thursday after returning to New Jersey from the group’s final planned national gathering in Washington.
Muller predicted a large convergence that would feature “not just bikers, but patriotic Americans.”
Muller, 74, a former Army sergeant who served in Vietnam, said he appreciates that Trump “speaks the truth” and said he considers Pelosi an “arrogant little bitch.”
[Related: Rolling Thunder riders hope Trump lives up to promise to continue event]
“Same with Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi should open up their closets and put some charges against them,” he said.
Muller is likely to be joined by throngs of fellow bikers if a pro-Trump rally were to take place. Many members of the POW/MIA organization are fiercely supportive of Trump, even if they are sticking to their plan to fragment the Memorial Day gathering into regional rides after 32 years of descending on Washington.
Francis “Mac” MacDonald, the president of a Rolling Thunder chapter in Virginia, said he “and most of our chapter” would ride in Trump’s defense but stressed it would be in a personal capacity. He bans political and religious talk among his chapter in favor of unifying ideals.
The numbers involved in a pro-Trump rally could be large. More than 1 million bikers are believed to have traveled to D.C. for this year’s Rolling Thunder rally. And infrequent, unrelated biker activism has drawn large numbers, including a 2013 ride that brought thousands of bikers to counterprotest a 9/11 event originally billed as the Million Muslim March.
Gus Dante, a national board member of Rolling Thunder, said he’s not sure that he would join an anti-impeachment protest, wanting to preserve a working relationship with Democrats such as the cause’s “dear friend” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
[Also read: Wreaths Across America offers $200K to keep Rolling Thunder riding in 2020]
Dante, however, said “everyone is fed up” with Washington politics, and that it was conceivable large numbers of bikers would participate.
Organizers expect smaller D.C. ride
The Rolling Thunder organization campaigns for missing and imprisoned soldiers and decided in November, after a bitter disagreement with Pentagon parking lot officials, to end the national trek to Washington.
Trump tweeted on Sunday, however, that the bikers “WILL be coming back” and thanked “our great men & women of the Pentagon for working it out!”
Muller said the White House has not contacted the group, and Trump wasn’t entirely accurate.
“Technically yes and technically no. We have chapters in Virginia and Maryland that will do it, but we want them to stay the f–k out of the Pentagon parking lot,” Muller said.
Muller said during the 2018 event, Pentagon officers refused to let bikers into a section of the parking lot where food and water were waiting. He viewed it as a power trip. “It’s their part to say, ‘F–k you, we’re in charge,’” he said. For the final ride this year, he said large numbers prevented problems. “They couldn’t f–k with us. We had too many people,” he said.
Pentagon spokeswoman Sue Gough defended the past conduct of the parking lot attendants but said she “can’t speculate on what may or may not happen in the future regarding Rolling Thunder.”
“As federal police officers, Pentagon Force Protection Agency personnel consider all relevant safety and security-related information while facilitating access,” Gough said. “Effective preparation for an event the size and scale of a Rolling Thunder ride is a complicated and lengthy process.”
Few alternatives to the Pentagon parking lot are available. RFK Stadium in Washington was considered, but its lot was found insecure, Muller said.
Although parking issues prompted the regional plan, organizers also cited aging veterans and the possibility of having more impact locally. Costs also were mentioned, but organizers have not yet accepted a $200,000 funding offer from fellow veterans organization Wreaths Across America.
MacDonald, the Virginia chapter president, said he would eagerly join a White House summit with Trump, but that at a minimum he plans to continue a Memorial Day weekend “blessing of the bikes” at the Washington National Cathedral and a ride past the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which would not require permits.
“Nothing says I can’t roll down Constitution Avenue going the speed limit,” MacDonald said. “It might piss off a lot of people in the city, but oh well.”
