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President Donald Trump rang in America’s 250th birthday celebrations with a 28-minute speech at Mount Rushmore and a fireworks display that might have rivaled his words.
“The American dream still lives, and the American flag still flies more proudly than ever before over the people who will not quit,” Trump said at the end of his lengthy — albeit shorter than his usual hours-long — speech. “The nation that will not fail, the country that will not fall no matter how hard the enemy tries, we cannot be beaten.”
As Trump spoke, across the world, Iranians buried Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at funeral ceremonies with calls for revenge on the U.S.
In perhaps the most iconic excerpt from Trump’s speech, American exceptionalism was highlighted.
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“Americans honor excellence; we admire boldness; we respect ambition,” Trump said. “We are a nation of dreamers and believers, warriors and explorers, doers and fighters and in every human endeavor Americans see an unfinished competition.
“What is strong can be made stronger. What is fast can be made faster. What is great can be made greater than ever before. And that’s what’s happening with America.
“Show us a mountain, and we’ll just climb it. Show us an ocean and we’ll just cross it. Show us a problem and we will just solve it. Show us a task the world calls impossible and Americans will get it done.”
Trump finished with a salute to his oft-repeated “golden age of America” mantra for the 250th birthday celebration.
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“Tomorrow we reach a milestone like no other and celebrate with joyful hearts and soaring spirits, because after two and a half centuries, we know that this is not an ending,” Trump’s speech concluded. “This is only the beginning of the Golden Age of America. And together we will make America bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.
“I promise you that it’s an honor to be your president. Thank you very much and Happy Independence Day to all. God bless you all.”
The YMCA song and Trump dance followed in the Black Hills of South Dakota before a 23-minute light and fireworks display over the 60-foot carved heads of four U.S. presidents: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln.
The Mount Rushmore fireworks were accompanied by the words of past presidents.
Here is a blow-by-blow of the fireworks display music and quotes, starting with Washington’s first inaugural address:
- “The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally, staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”
- “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee.”
- A quote of Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address”:
- “That this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom. And that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
- “The Battle Cry of Freedom.”
- Theodore Roosevelt’s 1912 speech “The Right of the People to Rule”: “A great fundamental issue now before our people can be put. It is are the American people that govern themselves to rule themselves, to control them, that I believe they are.”
- Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first inaugural address in 1933: “Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
- President Ronald Reagan’s speech to America after the January 28, 1986, Challenger disaster: “The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted. It belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future and we’ll continue to follow them.”
- Coffey Anderson’s “Mr. Red White and Blue.”
- “USA” by Filmore featuring Pitbull.
- President Bill Clinton’s second inaugural: “At the dawn of the 21st century a free people must now choose to shape the forces of the information age and the global society, to unleash the limitless potential of all our people, and yes, to form a more perfect union.”
- President George W. Bush’s Sept. 14, 2001 bullhorn response to search and rescue workers: “I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knock these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”
- President Barack Obama’s 2009 inaugural: “The God given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.”
- Trump’s first inaugural address in 2017: “When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice… When America is united, America is totally unstoppable.”
- The voice of President Joe Biden using the words of Gene Scheer’s “American Anthem”: “The work and prayers of the century have brought us to this day. What shall be our legacy? What will our children say? Let me know in my heart when my days are through: America, America, I gave my best to you.”
- Trump’s 2026 State of the Union: “The revolution that began in 1776 has not ended. It still continues because the flame of liberty and independence still burns in the heart of every American patriot. And our future will be bigger, better, brighter, bolder, and more glorious than ever before. Thank you. God bless you and God bless America.”
- Tom Cochrane’s “Life Is a Highway.”
- John Mellencamp’s “R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.”
- Ray Charles’ “America the Beautiful.”
And the grand finale exploded for over two minutes to the tune of Bob Sharples’ “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”
Trump’s relatively short speech, by his own standards, sets the stage for Saturday night’s Washington, D.C., address, which he promises will be “very long,” and accompanied by flyovers and what has had hailed as “the largest fireworks display in world history, 10 times larger than any that we’ve ever done in Washington or in the United States.”
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