With July 4th looming, the nation’s capital has become a “fortress” as the White House prepares for President Donald Trump’s much vaunted fireworks display amid what security experts say is a “heightened” potential for attack. Increasing the complexity of the situation is “Trump’s approach of making himself the star of the nation’s semiquincentennial celebration.”
This is according to the latest from the Atlantic, which explained, “This year’s Fourth of July fireworks show on the National Mall is the first such event to be designated a ‘National Special Security Event,’ which requires the kind of screening procedures and police presence usually reserved for presidential inaugurations and Super Bowls. It’s a reflection of the logistical complexity and anticipated crowd size of America’s 250th birthday party, but also, unfortunately, its potential appeal to attackers at a time of rising threats.”
That NSSE designation puts the Secret Service in charge of protecting the event, which Trump has declared will be “THE LARGEST FIREWORKS SHOW IN HISTORY.” With temperatures forecasted to soar as high as triple digits, “getting in may be more like going through an airport than going to a party,” writes the Atlantic. “That’s not least because the president has placed himself at the center of the festivities and has plans to give ‘a really long speech just to show that I can do anything.’”
As a result of this and other events, D.C. has become a “fortress,” and “the normally wide-open expanse at the city’s heart has been ringed with security fences for weeks… ‘I’ve lived here most of my life, and I’ve never seen it look like this on the Mall,’ Mayor Muriel Bowser told reporters on Monday.” According to the agent in charge of the Secret Service DC office, Trump has mobilized thousands of National Guard troops in the capital in addition to “unseen resources” readied to “disrupt any bad actor.”
Said Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielimi, there is good reason for all the extra security. As the Atlantic explains, he “told us that the volume of threats that his agency is monitoring overall ‘has never been higher.’ Threat reports requiring Secret Service investigation so far this year have increased 40 percent compared with the same period last year, according to the agency. Security officials say there has been a particular uptick in threats from ‘nihilistic violent extremists,’ many of whom aim to use violence against law-enforcement personnel or symbols of government.”
Trump’s war with Iran has only “heightened the threat.” Said Frank Figliuzzi, a former assistant director of the FBI, “I’m very concerned about a lone actor inspired by Iran, rather than an actual all‑out professional attack. That’s the hardest thing to detect — that lone actor who’s been inspired.” He says that a potential attacker may see the 250th celebrations as the perfect opportunity for “striking at the heart of what they think America stands for.”
Further complicating the situation is the fact that “as the threats facing the country have grown, the law-enforcement and intelligence agencies tasked with keeping the country safe have been dealing with a shortage of man power and expertise. Many top officials have quit or been fired since Trump returned to office, and Figliuzzi described an FBI now staffed with what he believes is ‘the youngest cadre of special agents in charge and assistant directors in the modern history of the FBI.’ Some officials acknowledge — in private — that politically motivated purges have left the country’s law-enforcement and intelligence agencies understaffed and more prone to mistakes.”
Law-enforcement officials also told the Atlantic that “the president’s central role in the July 4 events and the extending of their length late into the evening have added complexity — and risk.”
“This year,” writes the Atlantic, “Trump will occupy the prime-time slot… The White House has not said whether he’ll deliver a written speech or make the kind of semi-improvised remarks more typical of a MAGA rally. But at some point, he’s planning to show off his new Air Force One jet — given to him by the government of Qatar — with a flyover of the crowd. Trump said on Wednesday that he will use the occasion to demonstrate his stamina despite the summer heat. It’s not customary for presidents to give a speech on the Mall for July 4, but it’s in keeping with Trump’s approach of making himself the star of the nation’s semiquincentennial celebration.”