President Donald Trump warned that any protests during this weekend’s major military parade in Washington will be met with “very heavy force.”
“If there’s any protester who wants to come out, they will be met with very big force,” the president said Tuesday during an impromptu Oval Office press conference. “I haven’t even heard about a protest, but [there are] people that hate our country.”
Trump’s threat came as thousands of National Guard troops and about 700 marines are in Los Angeles, clashing with protesters of the president’s immigration agenda. Trump claimed Tuesday without evidence the demonstrators were “paid insurrectionists” and said the city would have experienced “a lot of death and destruction” if he had not sent in the Guard.
“If we didn’t attack this one very strongly, you’d have them all over the country,” Trump said of the Los Angeles protests. “But I can inform the rest of the country that when they do it — if they do it — they’re gonna be met with equal or greater force.”
The comments come as the White House and Washington law enforcement officials are preparing for a military parade on Saturday, which coincides with the Army’s 250th — and Trump’s 79th — birthday.
By Tuesday, a mile-long line of tanks had arrived in Washington, and barricades were going up around the White House complex. It will be the first military parade in the nation’s capital since the country celebrated the end of the Gulf War more than three decades ago.
Large demonstrations were expected in several major cities on Tuesday, and a string of “No Kings” protests is expected from coast to coast on Saturday — including in Washington.
Ahead of Trump’s Oval Office remarks, Communications Director Steven Cheung told POLITICO the White House was not concerned about protests disrupting the military event.
“The parade is a way to celebrate the Army and to celebrate generations of individuals who have fought and paid the ultimate sacrifice for the country,” he said, adding that he expected large crowds of supporters.
Law enforcement officials in Washington are also preparing for the event, which will be the fifth designated “national special security event” in the city this year — an unprecedented number in recent memory, according to federal security agencies. Local and federal law enforcement plan to deploy more than 100 metal detectors and multiple drones, according to Matt McCool, the agent in charge of the U.S. Secret Service’s D.C. office.
Officials are tracking a handful of demonstrations — or “First Amendment activity,” as law enforcement calls it — planned for Saturday, but “don’t have any significant concerns,” Jessica Taylor, chief of the U.S. Park Police, told reporters on Monday.
“As far as the First Amendment activity from a Secret Service perspective, it’s simply people using their First Amendment right to protest. We’re not going to do anything with that,” McCool said. “But if that turns violent or if any laws are broken, that’s when [Metro Police], Park Police, Secret Service will get involved, and that will be handled swiftly.”
