MSNBC host Joy Reid said that President Trump’s planned Independence Day celebration that will feature tanks is threatening to Americans and that the president “styles himself a tyrant.”
Reid was discussing the “Salute to America” event, which will include a massive fireworks display, flyovers by military aircraft and Air Force One, and military vehicles on the National Mall. She compared Trump to dictators who use military weaponry in parades and said Trump “sort of aspires to be a mini-Putin or Kim Jong Un.”
She contrasted Trump’s event to France’s Bastille Day celebration, which also features military vehicles. She said that France’s celebration is done in defiance of tyranny, while the president’s planned celebration is not.
“Who is that message to? It’s certainly not to tyrants because he likes tyrants, he loves tyrants. It’s not to Putin, it’s not to Kim Jong Un, it’s not to the Saudis,” she said.
“Is it to our friends? Is it to Western democracies, who he doesn’t particularly like? Or is it to us? Is it to the resistance in this country?” she said. “‘I got tanks, I have this military armada.’ The message is a threat. But it’s always a threat when you roll out your military. But it’s to whom is the threat, and I suspect that the threat is to his fellow Americans.
“And I hate to say that, but I think that Donald Trump styles himself a tyrant, not a defeater of tyrants,” she added.
