The Truth About Trump And The Military Parade On His Birthday

To say that President Donald Trump's second term has been controversial would be something of an understatement. In the few months since he took office, he entrusted the world's richest person and $288 million Trump election campaign donor Elon Musk, to head the "Department of Government Efficiency," hacking at government spending and cutting funding to medical research and foreign aid. In an escalation of his hardline rhetoric on immigration, Trump has encouraged ICE to increase deportations, which commentators now note chillingly extend to legal residents and even citizens who have been critical of the Trump administration and its policies.

Trump failed to take action against several senior figures, including Defense Secretary Pete Hesgeth, involved in "Signalgate," in which several of his allies were found to have shared classified military information over the insecure messaging service Signal against security protocol. It has been argued that the president has chosen to overlook the errors of his loyalists. 

On the world stage, Trump has aggressively attempted to impose tariffs against many of his own allies, threatened to withdraw military support for Ukraine and NATO, and spoken openly about the potential for the U.S. to annex allied territories including Canada and Greenland. Several political experts have warned that Trump's wielding of the presidency resembles that of an autocrat.

So it was no surprise then, that reports that Trump was planning a huge military parade on the occasion of his own birthday have received widespread criticism. Trump had reportedly been keen for a show of military strength in his first term, which took place between 2016 and 2020, but generals had scotched the request due to their unwillingness to see the armed forces become politicized. Now, it appears that Trump is due to get what he wants.

Outside of state funerals, military parades are generally treated with suspicion by many corners of the Western world. Indeed, they are most commonly associated with autocratic states such as Russia, China, and North Korea, who use such parades to telegraph their apparent military might to the world. However, other more liberal countries, such as France, which celebrates Bastille Day each year with a huge military parade in Paris, also indulge in such showmanship. It was apparently from France that Trump began to develop the idea of his own military parade.

Reports that President Donald Trump was planning a military parade for his 79th birthday raised hackles across many media outlets. The New York Times reported the scale of the parade, which is to take place in Washington, as including 6,700 soldiers, 28 M1A1 Abrams tanks, 28 Stryker armored personnel carriers, 100 other military vehicles, a B-25 bomber, 50 helicopters, and 34 horses, and questioned the degree to which Trump's hold over the Pentagon has increased his ability to politicize the military. Online, he has been branded a "wannabe Putin" (per The Irish Star).

The military has sought to play down the association between the planned parade and the birthday of President Donald Trump. As they have noted, the parade is officially intended to mark the 250th birthday of the U.S. military — which just so happens to coincide with the birthday of the president on June 14, 2025. The three-hour show is intended to take attendees, who can pre-purchase tickets and who are expected to number at least 200,000, through the history of the American military from the Revolutionary War to the present day and beyond.

As Army spokesperson Steve Warren told the press when asked whether Trump's special day would be in any way commemorated during the event: "No plans. This has been the Army's birthday for [250 years] — we've had 249 previous of these" (via The Daily Beast). Nevertheless, Trump is expected to deliver a speech as part of the celebrations.

Whatever its real intentions and whether the parade is in any way intended to mark Trump's birthday or not, it has remained highly controversial. Outlets have noted that the heavy vehicles to be used in the parade are expected to damage local roads which will then require repairs, and that the entire program of festivities could cost up to $45 million.