{"id":58962,"date":"2026-07-30T22:38:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T22:38:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/58962\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T22:38:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T22:38:24","slug":"trump-demands-you-pay-even-more-for-his-dumb-freedom-250-flop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/58962\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump demands you pay even more for his dumb Freedom 250 flop"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019ve probably already put America\u2019s 250th birthday behind you. What should have been a terrific bipartisan celebration of our nation\u2019s history was hijacked by President Donald Trump, who turned it into a right-wing, low-rent catastrophe<\/a> and a birthday party for himself.<\/p>\n

Not only that, but he also hijacked your tax dollars, diverting funds<\/a> from the actual bipartisan group, America250, to Freedom 250, the sleazy \u201cpublic-private partnership\u201d run by the White House that essentially sidelined the real event and gave us Trump\u2019s pathetic events<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"MembersAn arena is set up outside of the White House for Trump\u2019s Freedom 250 UFC fights.AP<\/p>\n

But apparently Trump didn\u2019t divert enough taxpayer dollars, so the administration is back\u2014hat in hand\u2014demanding<\/a> another $10 million \u201cto recoup costs associated with support of events celebrating America\u2019s Semiquincentennial.\u201d<\/p>\n

How could Trump have possibly blown through the $150 million<\/a> in taxpayer money? And what about the part where Trump bragged that private donations would cover any gap?\u00a0<\/p>\n

The whole thing was shady from the jump, with a private company, Event Strategies, run by former Trump campaign aides, getting a sweet profit<\/a> to organize the terrible events rather than having government personnel do it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Indeed, the Trump administration has been very good to Event Strategies, which also handled the logistics<\/a> of Trump\u2019s Jan. 6, 2021, rally and has received $13 million in sweet no-bid contracts since Trump retook office.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Related | Wait, taxpayers are going to pay how much for Trump\u2019s dumb ballroom?\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

But according to the administration, they just had to spend so much money on security for all of these big special events.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the elevated security threats against high-profile events in Washington, D.C. \u2026 an elevated security posture was needed to ensure the safety of the public at these events. This funding would help address the expenditures associated with the elevated security posture,\u201d the Interior Department wrote.<\/p>\n

So what we\u2019re really talking about here is that the government wants to recoup its costs for what it spent to coddle Trump, wrapping him in a little security blanket for his big, special birthday UFC fight, partisan rally, and fireworks fiasco.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because let\u2019s face it: it isn\u2019t that the millions were spent on these events.<\/p>\n

\"AlexisAlexis Wilkins sings the National Anthem before Trump speaks at the opening of the Great American State Fair on June 24.AP<\/p>\n

The biggest star who performed at the Freedom 250 rally was FBI Director Kash Patel\u2019s fake country singer girlfriend<\/a>, Alexis Wilkins, after all of the past-their-prime musicians bailed<\/a> upon learning that it wasn\u2019t really a nonpartisan celebration of America.<\/p>\n

So what could that cost? Did we pay a premium for Wilkins to twangbellow the anthem?<\/p>\n

Well, we actually did probably have to pay<\/a> to fly her there on the official FBI jet, along with her official SWAT team, because that\u2019s a thing we have now: SWAT teams for the FBI director\u2019s girlfriend, on your dime.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Great American State Fair<\/a> certainly couldn\u2019t have cost that much, given that it was mostly just booths that states were required to pay to furnish and a Temu Trump Arch.<\/p>\n

And, of course, since basically nobody came to the thing, the administration didn\u2019t rack up costs entertaining people. It\u2019s just money for Trump, as always.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Honestly, the only surprising thing about Trump\u2019s latest cash grab is that he isn\u2019t using it to push for<\/a> his top secret bulletproof ballroom\/drone port\/military installation\/hospital\/indoor golf course.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But give it time. He\u2019ll probably get there.<\/p>\n

\tWe’ll get straight to the point: The financial hardships that Daily Kos is facing this year are tough.<\/p>\n

We continue to be paywall-free. We continue to be supported by our readers, not billionaires or corporations. But we need to bring in more revenue. We are leaning on our community more than ever to help make ends meet.<\/p>\n

\t\tPower matters.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our daily top stories newsletter so you don’t miss how it’s being used\u2014and what comes next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You\u2019ve probably already put America\u2019s 250th birthday behind you. What should have been a terrific bipartisan celebration of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[23680,8510,3375,31302,26952,31303,8,31304,9,31305,7,31306],"class_list":["post-58962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-america250","tag-ballroom","tag-corruption","tag-donaldtrump","tag-freedom250","tag-grift","tag-headlines","tag-kashpatel","tag-news","tag-taxpayers","tag-top-stories","tag-washingtondc"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/117011330128208123","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}