US President Donald Trump on Saturday vowed to defeat the “radical left” in an Independence Day speech at the White House, condemning efforts to remove or rethink monuments to historical figures as attempts to destroy the US.
Trump claimed without evidence that 99 percent of COVID-19 cases in the US were “totally harmless.”
However, many US states marked a record number of new cases. In Texas alone, 7,890 people were hospitalized after 238 new admissions in 24 hours.
Photo: AFP
While criticism mounted over his handling of the pandemic, Trump said China must be “held accountable” for failing to contain the disease.
Peaceful protesters called for racial equality just steps from where Trump spoke in Washington, marching down blocked-off streets around the White House, Black Lives Matter Plaza and the Lincoln Memorial.
Millions of Americans have been demonstrating against police brutality and racial inequality since the May 25 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
In addition to achieving police reforms in some cities, some protesters have removed Confederate statues and other symbols of the US’ legacy of slavery.
“There have always been those who seek to lie about the past in order to gain power in the present, those that are lying about our history, those who want us to be ashamed of who we are,” Trump said on Saturday. “Their goal is demolition.”
Former US vice president Joe Biden, Trump’s Democratic rival in the November election, wrote a Fourth of July op-ed piece that struck a contrasting note with the Republican president and accused him of finding every day “new ways to tarnish and dismantle our democracy.”
In a separate letter to donors, Biden said: “We have a chance now to give the marginalized, the demonized, the isolated, the oppressed, a full share of the American dream.”
Trump in his speech also said the US would have a vaccine or therapeutic solution to the virus “long before” the end of this year.
On Thursday, a top US health official said that he was optimistic that the Trump administration’s vaccine-acceleration program “Operation Warp Speed” will generate a safe and effective vaccine by year-end.
Saturday’s speech at the White House was capped off by fighter jet air shows and a fireworks display over the National Mall.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser had tried to dissuade the Trump administration from holding the event, because it went against health officials’ guidance during the pandemic.
Apart from fireworks spectators, advocates of different stripes also appeared willing to disregard the health warnings.
Roar of the Deplorables, a biker group, said via social media that they planned to gather in Washington to stand in protest against what they call “the anti-Trump regime” and to celebrate the nation’s birthday.
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