Trump's attention drifts to 250th even after House floor meltdown

WASHINGTON — All aboard the Trump train.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday emerged from a rail coach painted specially for America’s 250th birthday bash, with both arms spread, as the awaiting crowd in Medora, N.D., cheered his arrival.

Moments later, as a pack of Theodore Roosevelt-era “Rough Rider” enactors on horseback escorted Trump’s motorcade to the dedication of Theodore Roosevelt’s presidential library, it could not be more clear the 47th president was more than 1,600 miles from Washington.

And all indications suggested he was relishing it.

Trump’s attention in recent weeks has drifted from legislative matters to the spectacle he intends to put on around America’s 250th birthday, even as House Republicans melted down this week and left town in a huff. Congressional Democrats say the president should celebrate less and work harder to calm economic pressure points they say he created.

Trump on Wednesday called Roosevelt “a man who I have long admired, he’s one of the few — I don’t admire too many people,” he said, adding that he was also “back in North Dakota because I won this state with the most votes in the history of the presidency.”

When he wasn’t griping about a broken teleprompter, Trump recounted “a conversation” he had earlier with an AI version of Roosevelt, who died in 1919, about the Panama Canal. There was an eye-popping comment about his sons and the Medal of Honor. And the 80-year-old issued a challenge to the “heat dome” that’s parked over the eastern United States.

“On July 4, it’s going to be approximately 107 degrees out [in Washington],” he said. “I’m going to make a really long speech — just to show that I can do anything.”

The appearance was another example of Trump’s intense focus on his ballroom, Reflecting Pool overhaul and Arlington Memorial Bridge-adjacent arch projects, as well as military flyovers and events sprinkled around July 4.

On Tuesday, he spent much of the day slamming Supreme Court decisions that went against him and praising ones that broke in his favor. The same day, House Republicans left Washington two days early after a group of conservatives maintained their floor blockade.

A White House official did not describe any direct presidential involvement when asked that afternoon if Trump planned to work the phones to end the blockade — or if he was fine with the House leaving town.

“We continue to work with Congress to secure a defense bill that comports with the administration’s priorities,” the official said in an email, making clear the White House was leaving the fracas to House GOP leaders.

As he departed Washington for Medora, Trump did not appear worried about his party’s legislative meltdown. Speaking from under a wing of a new Air Force One jet gifted to him by Qatar, the passenger in chief largely bragged about the lavish plane.

“They just completed it. They made it appropriate for a president, that means the security and all of the different bells and whistles they put on. Very complex stuff, but it’s really quite something,” Trump said. A new Boeing-built Air Force One would not be ready for another “two years,” he said.

“Frankly, we couldn’t build a plane like this because we wouldn’t be willing to spend the kind of money necessary. They spent top dollars,” he said of the Qataris, adding of the massive jet with the dark blue-red-and-gold paint scheme he designed: “Never been a plane like it.”

That came one day after Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Lori Trahan, flanked by party leaders, contended that Trump should celebrate less and work harder on voters’ economic worries.

“This weekend, America turns 250 years old,” Trahan said at a press conference. “And whether families are filling up their tanks to hit the road or firing up the grill at home, they’re bracing for what it’s going to cost them, because a year and a half into Donald Trump’s presidency, life has only gotten harder for the vast majority of Americans.”

During his first of two planned Dakota swings — he is slated to be in South Dakota Friday night to deliver remarks at Mount Rushmore — Trump did not call for congressional Republican harmony.

That followed a Monday Oval Office event during which he raised eyebrows by dissing a bipartisan housing measure many House and Senate Republicans supported and intended to run on.

Trump told reporters his lone legislative goal was the voter ID bill known as the SAVE America Act. That’s despite Senate GOP leaders pleading with him to end his obsession with the bill, which would usher in voter ID requirements and strict restrictions on mail-in voting. They argue that it cannot clear the Senate’s 60-vote legislative threshold.

“Here’s what I would like to say, much more than a bill, the big deal, it’s a yawn. Some people say, ‘It’s wonderful.’ To me, compared to the SAVE America Act, just about everything is a big yawn,” Trump said with a dismissive tone.

Trump this week has not mentioned the House’s now-stalled fiscal 2027 defense policy or State Department appropriations measures, focusing mostly on his 250th plans.

‘Can’t help himself’

Some Democratic lawmakers have criticized him for, as they see it, politicizing the country’s milestone birthday.

During a June 24 Judiciary Committee hearing, Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California said Trump “can’t help himself, especially with things that don’t involve him, don’t praise him, don’t highlight him.”

“President Trump couldn’t help but try making America’s 250th birthday all about himself. Right around this time last year, we saw him start to hijack and politicize America 250 events,” Padilla said. “The president has created a whole new entity called Freedom 250 — confusing to some — to funnel money from taxpayers and donors to pay for his pet projects and events.”

Amid his 250th planning, Trump has done little to build political momentum for the third budget reconciliation measure that some House and Senate Republicans, including Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, want to pursue after the July 4 recess.

That could become a missed opportunity to help GOP incumbents pass a sprawling package of conservative wish-list items just months before the midterm elections.

Another complication: the House is slated to be in session just eight days in July — then on an extended August recess from July 24-Aug. 31.

With so much intra-party bad blood, House Republicans somehow coalescing around another reconciliation bill in just eight days seems doubtful. A presidential intervention also seems unlikely.

“I will be speaking at approximately 9 P.M., preceding the Fireworks which again, like the Airshow, will be approximately ten times larger than any Fireworks in the History of our Country. So, if you like Airplanes and Fireworks and President Trump, be there!” Trump wrote in a Friday Truth Social post.

Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn, who lost his recent primary to Trump-backed state Attorney General Ken Paxton, reportedly called the president’s approach to the country’s birthday “sad.”

As he toured the Roosevelt library, Trump was thinking about his own, slated to be erected in Miami.

“I’m getting some ideas,” he replied, pointing to his temple. “I’m getting some good ideas.”

As Trump danced on stage to “YMCA” before departing Medora, longtime political commentator Geraldo Rivera told NewsNation he increasingly sees a second-term president who has begun “mailing it in” and “is already thinking about his new life.”