The process of planning America's 250th anniversary next year has been thrown into chaos by President Donald Trump's efforts to take over the committee planning it, The Atlantic reported on Wednesday.
Trump has reportedly wanted a grandiose spectacle shaped in his image, complete with yet another military parade in Washington, D.C., despite his previous parade being shrouded in controversy and overshadowed by nationwide protests.
The drama began early in July, reported Michael Scherer, as "Trump’s top political appointee at America250, a former Fox News producer named Ariel Abergel, moved to gain greater influence over the bipartisan commission. He called four Republican commissioners, who had been appointed years ago by then-Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, with a blunt request: Consider resigning to make way for new appointees."
These appointees refused to do so, even as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) joined Trump in pressuring them to do so.
Not only that, but the power play appears to have backfired on Trump, according to the report: "Johnson’s office decided to back off, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune has indicated that he seeks no changes to the commission, according to people familiar with their thinking. Then other members of the commission, which Abergel works for, began discussing efforts to push him out of his job, arguing that his decision to ask for the resignations had demonstrated his lack of judgment."
Per the report, of the reason Trump hasn't been able to take over the United States Semiquincentennial Commission, as he has other cultural committees like the board in charge of the Kennedy Center, is that it "largely answers to the legislative branch, not the White House, and has a sprawling leadership structure that includes sitting senators, members of Congress, and ex officio members such as the secretary of defense and the secretary of state."