Former president Donald Trump called his successor President Joe Biden “perhaps the most unpatriotic president in American history,” during a July 3 rally in Sarasota, Fla., over a fireworks display cancellation.
Conservative media outlet the Washington Examiner reported Trump’s comment the day of the event.
“We had fireworks at Mount Rushmore that were so incredible ... and it was wonderful, and then, I saw the other day that they refuse to allow it to happen again. I think they do it in spite,” Trump said, according to the outlet. “It's so ridiculous. It's so sad.”
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Last summer, while Trump was still president, he organized a fireworks and military flyover event at Mount Rushmore, located in Keystone, ND, despite concerns about environmental and safety risks. According the Washington Post, Trump had wanted to put on fireworks at the national monument since 2008.
The National Park Service stopped staging pyrotechnics at Mount Rushmore in 2010 due to wildfire concerns, as the monument is surrounded by 1,200 acres of forest that includes flammable pine trees. This wasn’t the only issue with the event – there were concerns about COVID-19 transmission because vaccines were not yet available and Native American groups voiced opposition to the event.
The Black Hills that U.S. presidents’ faces are carved into to make Mount Rushmore are sacred to Lakota Sioux peoples native to the land, explained PBS.
Even with the threat of wildfires still looming, continued criticism from Native Americans, and variants of COVID-19 that may cause breakthrough infections in vaccinated people, North Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem indicated last month that she intended to hold another fireworks event at Mount Rushmore this year, said the Associated Press. However, a federal judge blocked Noem’s efforts to force the National Park Service to grant the state a permit to shoot fireworks at the site, reported The Tennessee Tribune.
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Noem then sued the National Park Service for denying her request, said the Washington Examiner. It was tossed out June 2 by the U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota. Noem said on Twitter that she has her sights set on another Mount Rushmore fireworks display next year.
In addition to calling Biden unpatriotic for the federal decision not to allow the fireworks, Trump said it was an attempt “to cancel the heroes on Mount Rushmore,” and joked that Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. might soon be replaced with one honoring of Al Sharpton or Biden, said the Washington Examiner.