Trump’s July 4 Fireworks Show is Monumentally Insane

The White House’s July 4 celebration is about to blow the ceiling off of Washington—and not in a good way.

Government workers were spotted by independent journalist Amanda Moore on Monday using forklifts to move pallets full of fireworks around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool ahead of America’s semiquincentennial.

The location was not an oddity, as the federal government has traditionally chosen the Reflecting Pool as its primary launch site. What is exceptionally unusual is the amount of firepower behind the 250th celebration.

Donald Trump promised earlier this month that he would launch “the LARGEST FIREWORKS SHOW IN HISTORY” on Independence Day 2026. By the numbers, it’s not even close: A typical July 4 show in the nation’s capital uses roughly 17,000 to 20,000 shells for a 17-minute show, according to figures collected by The Washington Post.

This year, the Freedom 250 celebration has proposed a record-shattering 40-minute display beginning at 10:30 p.m. that will use more than 860,000 explosives. They’ll be set off along the Reflecting Pool, as well as in West Potomac Park and on eight barges on the Potomac River.

Pyrotecnico, the Pennsylvania-based vendor responsible for the show, told the Post that it would “not only” be a “once-in-a-generation patriotic spectacle but a landmark moment in fireworks history.”

The previous record was held by Manila in the Philippines, which earned the Guinness World Record title in 2016 for lighting 809,000 fireworks during a New Year’s Eve event.

But rules around Washington’s celebration are likely to make the spectacle an unpleasant evening for local spectators. The Department of Homeland Security has classified the ceremony as a National Special Security Event, the same security classification used for presidential inaugurations, since Trump is expected to deliver remarks in person ahead of the display.

That will forbid a long list of typical July 4 accoutrements, such as chairs, coolers, balls, frisbees, aerosols, metal or glass containers, lighters, vapes, and even spray sunscreen, reported WTOP News.

Beyond that, federal workers will also be fighting Mother Nature, which is expected to shatter weather records by bringing triple-digit temperatures to Washington amid a historic heat wave this weekend.

President Donald Trump launched into a rant about communism as the biggest threat to the United States, after being triggered by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Speaking to reporters in the White House, Trump was asked whether he was concerned by Mamdani assenting to be made the “poster child” for socialism.

“I think it’s a big threat to our nation, actually, because it’s not socialism, it’s really communism,” Trump said.

“I think it’s the biggest threat to our nation there is, maybe since our founding. That includes World War I, World War II, September 11th. It includes the, uh, Pearl Harbor attack. I think this is the biggest threat,” Trump said. “People will smile when I say that, but the smart people are gonna say, ‘You know, he’s probably right.’ It’s basically introducing communism into the United States of America.”

Clearly, Trump needs a bit of a history lesson. “Who’s gonna tell him about World War Two?” historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat wrote on X.

Does Trump honestly think communism is the biggest threat to the U.S.? The president is obviously rattled by all of Mamdani’s recent victories in New York City—and his growing popularity with voters.

Last week, Trump had a meltdown after a slate of democratic socialist candidates endorsed by Mamdani won their primary elections in New York.

The president also fumed after the city’s Rent Guidelines Board passed a rent freeze, enabling Mamdani to make good on one of his key campaign promises, help tenants living in the city’s nearly one million rent-stabilized apartments, and get under the skin of a former NYC slumlord.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the daytime television host tapped by President Donald Trump to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, doesn’t understand how health insurance works.

Speaking on Fox News Monday in front of the president’s desolate fairgrounds, Oz presented his proof that the Obamacare marketplace was plagued by fraud—and in the process revealed how little he actually knows about health insurance.

Oz claimed that of 23 million people who were signed up for the Affordable Care Act—commonly known as Obamacare—40 percent of enrollees had never actually used their insurance.

“It raises, again, the reality that there are many people who are signed up who are getting paid for, but don’t believe they have the insurance, don’t know they have insurance, don’t want the insurance,” Oz said.

Of course, that’s not really how health insurance coverage works: Just because you have it doesn’t mean you actually use it. The only “reality” that Oz’s statistics raised was that health care in this country is way too expensive.

“Over 50% of insured Americans struggle to afford seeing a doctor, and 1 in 4 insured Americans skip medical treatments because of out-of-pocket costs,” Melanie D’Arrigo, director of the Campaign for New York Health, wrote on X. “The actual fraud is Americans being price gouged on healthcare.”

Many Americans on Obamacare marketplace plans struggle to pay their deductibles, or out-of-pocket costs, which have surged to record highs in 2026 and increase by more than $1,000 on average year over year. Still, more Americans are now choosing high-deductible plans after Trump stripped essential health care subsidies.

Over the weekend, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the Trump administration had uncovered more than one million people who were enrolled in Obamacare without Social Security numbers on file. Oz claimed that it was part of a plot by shady insurance agents to enroll unsuspecting—and potentially fake—Americans for Obamacare plans in order to collect “millions of dollars” in improper fees.

“The reality is we have a lot of fake people on the policies. We want them off because they don’t want the insurance, they’re covered elsewhere, or at least they never wanted to be in the program,” Oz told Fox News Saturday.

Neither official has presented any evidence to back up these claims.

President Donald Trump still won’t say whether he’ll sign a bipartisan housing bill that’s coming to his desk Monday, declaring it “a big yawn” compared to his voter suppression bill.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office Monday, Trump brushed aside mention of the legislation, which aims to boost housing supply and address affordability issues.

“Big deal. It’s a yawn,” Trump said. “Some people say it’s wonderful. To me, compared to the SAVE America Act, just about everything is a big yawn,” Trump said.

The SAVE America Act would require voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote, and a photo ID when voting. Citizenship is already a requirement to vote, and instances of noncitizens voting is incredibly rare. Plus, the bill as written doesn’t have enough support to pass the Senate; making it law before the housing bill, like Trump wants, is essentially impossible.

“I think it’s so unimportant by compared to the SAVE America Act. I think the SAVE America Act is exactly what it says—it’s saving America from crooked elections. And the housing bill is a bill that can get approved, they worked on it long and hard. It’s very bipartisan—that means the Democrats like it,” Trump said, seemingly insinuating that the bipartisanship of the housing bill was a flaw.

“They’re getting things that I wouldn’t necessarily agree to,” he continued. “Nobody knows more than housing in the history of the presidency, nobody did well like me in housing. I made a lot of money with housing. But when I look at that bill, it’s a bill. But when I look at the SAVE America Act, it’s about saving America,” Trump said, demonstrating his ability to read.

Republicans and Democrats alike are looking to the passage of the housing bill for a pre-midterm reputation boost. Republicans have a lot riding on this in particular. However, it seems like Trump would rather talk about his glory days as a slumlord than help out the vulnerable members of his own party—not to mention the millions of Americans who can’t afford homes.

The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday unanimously rejected three ballot measures that would have allowed Democrats to redraw the district map in their favor before the 2028 elections, dealing a blow to national party efforts in the gerrymandering race kick-started by President Donald Trump.

The decision blocks Democrats from securing a map that would have likely given them three more seats in the House of Representatives. Under the proposed new map, the only safe Republican district would be that of Representative Lauren Boebert.

The Supreme Court rejected the ballot measures on the basis of the state’s constitutionally mandated “single subject” policy, which requires measures to only handle a single issue.

“Changing long-settled law by modifying the timing, frequency, criteria, and entity responsible for congressional redistricting represents a significant change beyond the proponents’ stated central purposes [of] … congressional redistricting by adopting a new temporary map,” Chief Justice Monica Márquez said in one of her opinions.

Now, Colorado is out of the redistricting wars. So far, the only blue states that have approved a redistricting measure are California and Utah. But the groundwork has been laid for other states to do the same before 2028.