WASHINGTON — As President Donald Trump has deployed thousands of troops from the National Guard and the Marines to help put down Los Angeles protests against his immigration enforcement efforts, he is looking ahead to a major military parade on June 14 in Washington that officials said on Monday is expected to draw hundreds of thousands.

The parade, which the Army projects to cost between $25 and $45 million before security and clean up costs, is intended to honor the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army’s formation as the Continental Army at the dawn of the Revolutionary War in 1775. Saturday, June 14 is also Trump’s 79th birthday.

What You Need To Know

  • As President Donald Trump has deployed thousands of troops from the National Guard and the Marines to help put down Los Angeles protests against his immigration enforcement efforts, he is looking ahead to a major military parade on June 14 in Washington that officials said on Monday is expected to draw hundreds of thousands
  • The parade, which the Army projects to cost between $25 and $45 million before security and clean up costs, is intended to honor the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army’s formation as the Continental Army at the dawn of the Revolutionary War in 1775
  • Saturday, June 14 is also Trump’s 79th birthday

  • While more than 1,800 counter-protest “No Kings Day of Defiance” rallies are scheduled across the country by a coalition of labor unions, Democratic Party groups, advocacy organizations and grassroots campaigns, the protests’ organizers are explicitly not planning one for Washington  

“It's such a, I think, important moment for this country,” Trump said at an unrelated event on Monday afternoon, later adding “it's going to be a parade, the likes of which, I don't know if we've ever had a parade like that. It's going to be incredible… we have a lot of those Army airplanes flying over the top and we have tanks all over the place and we have thousands and thousands of soldiers that have bravely marched down the streets.”

The president cited as his inspiration for the recent parades held in Russia, France and other European countries marking the anniversary of the end of World War II. Trump had pitched a military parade during his first term after seeing one in France in 2017 and Matt McCool, the special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Washington Field Office, said on Monday they had begun preparations for this year’s parade on April 22. 

“I said, ‘wow, isn't that amazing?’ We're the only one that wasn't celebrating and we're the one that won the war,” Trump said. “Now, Russia did help. They did lose 51 million people, in all fairness. People would say, ‘Oh, he's sticking up for Russia.’ No, they lost 51 million people and you can't forget that.”

Trump claimed private donors and his own personal funds will contribute to the costs, but it was not immediately clear how much. Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser has expressed concern that the dozens of tanks and other military vehicles expected to participate in the parade will destroy city streets, with some estimates projecting millions of dollars of damages. The Army has said they are working with the city to mitigate any risk to infrastructure and outfitting both the vehicles and the roads with protective measures. 

With a festival marking the Army’s anniversary on the National Mall simultaneous to the parade, federal officials are expecting hundreds of thousands of attendees. While more than 1,800 counter-protest “No Kings Day of Defiance” rallies are scheduled across the country by a coalition of labor unions, Democratic Party groups, advocacy organizations and grassroots campaigns, the protests’ organizers are explicitly not planning one for Washington.

McCool, the Secret Service field office chief in Washington, said at a security briefing on Monday that the various agencies responsible for the security of Saturday’s festivities are “paying attention, obviously, to what is happening” in Los Angeles and will “be ready for that if it were to occur here.”

“We’re not expecting it. We have no intelligence of that happening here, but if it does, we have the resources to handle it,” McCool said, noting intelligence suggests counter-protests will be “not even close” to the expected number of parade and festival attendees. 

McCool said more than 18 miles of “anti-scale fencing” would be erected and “multiple drones” would be in the air. The entire District of Columbia is normally a no-fly zone for drones. A total of 175 magnetometers would be used at security checkpoints controlling access to the daytime birthday festival and the nighttime parade.

The military parade has been designated a National Special Security Event — similar to a presidential inauguration or state funeral. That status is reserved for events that draw large crowds and potential mass protests. It calls for an enhanced degree of high-level coordination among D.C. officials, the FBI, Capitol Police and Washington’s National Guard contingent — with the Secret Service taking the lead.

Agent Phillip Bates of the FBI's Washington Field office, which is tasked with counterterrorism and crisis management, said there were “no credible threats” to the event at the moment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.