Donald Trump is still determined to make this a thing. He's set his sights on mucking with the capitol city's Fourth of July celebration, apparently mostly as an excuse to insert his own swollen head into it. And it still doesn't seem like anyone involved, from any department, is happy with this plan except Donald himself.
In addition to a presidential address, the administration has ordered that the location of the fireworks display be moved. A source familiar with planning said there have also been talks about adding additional military elements to the regular Fourth of July parade, while the president's orders for a separate, grand military parade remain on perpetual delay.
He wants the fireworks to be moved. He wants to boost the military "elements" of the parade. He wants the fireworks display to be 20 minutes instead of 17 and a half, for no discernible reason other than Donald thinks Big Numbers Good, Smaller Numbers Not Good. And he still wants to set himself up with a speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial, because what greater gift could a malignant narcissist give the nation than a nationwide address by Himself, Most Important American.
Authorities have been pushing back on the Lincoln Memorial speech rather vigorously, it seems, but that hasn't yet convinced Donald to give it up. The primary difficulty would be security—and the expense of that security. (It's also likely a Trump speech would boost already-elevated national alcohol consumption to dangerous levels and result in overflowing emergency rooms within a half hour of his appearance, but it would be rude to point that out.)
We still seem to be well on track for this whole thing becoming a clusterf--k. The Fourth is just over a month away and planners still aren't sure where the fireworks will be, or where Trump will be speaking, or if he will be speaking, or just what additional "military elements" will need to pack themselves up and spend another holiday marching around for the president's entertainment. At best it will entail a lot of pointless scrambling for Donald's personal amusement. At best.
It's likely that his advisers are letting him wade into this primarily for distraction purposes. Every minute he spends coming up with new changes to Washington's holiday programming is a minute off Twitter, and away from Fox News, and diverted from raging over whatever's in the latest papers. It's going to end up being an expensive diversion, though.