Trump has a vision for America’s 250th birthday. Not everyone is pleased

On the campaign trail in 2023, Donald Trump laid out a promise that attracted little attention from the public: a grand celebration for the nation’s 250th birthday in 2026 that would evoke monumental world’s fairs from centuries past.

It would feature pavilions from all 50 states. It would travel across the country. And it would be called the Great American State Fair. Since then, Trump’s vision for a lavish July 4 extravaganza has grown to include a UFC fight at the White House and the presentation of the largest U.S. flag in history.

But funding issues and the president’s brand of politics have made some state and local planners worried. They’re concerned about a lack of resources to put on their own events and fear that the overall tenor will turn partisan as opposed to unifying, leaving little room for meaningful reflection on the nation’s past.

“What does a (UFC) fight have to do with America’s greatness? I have no idea,” said John Dichtl, president and chief executive of the American Association for State and Local History, a nonprofit that’s been critical of Trump administration funding cuts and efforts it says will lead to censorship of accurate historical information.

Kerry Tymchuk, executive director of the Oregon Historical Society who is leading the state’s 250th events planning, said it’s clear that Trump’s plans are “100% about the flag and patriotism and that’s part of the story, but it’s not all of the story.”

While preparations for 250th celebrations predate Trump taking office, his administration has swung into gear, aligning agencies and federal funding with the president’s anniversary priorities, and the president’s allies are flexing their influence on the nonprofit tasked with carrying out nationwide programs.

The administration’s approach differs from America’s bicentennial bash in 1976, when the federal government poured millions into local programming, giving states the resources to celebrate as they saw fit.

Instead, states are now wrestling with limited federal funding, and Trump administration cuts to the arts and humanities threaten to further scale back 250th efforts beyond Washington.

A nonpartisan body created by Congress in 2016, the US Semiquincentennial Commission, is supposed to oversee national programming for 250th celebrations. Its chair, Rosie Rios, was the US Treasurer under former President Barack Obama.

In addition, Congress put in place a nonprofit, America250.org, to carry out plans the commission votes on. Trump has installed allies at the group, including his former campaign manager Chris LaCivita as an advisor and a young, former Melania Trump aide and Fox News producer Ari Abergel in the role of executive director.

Abergel helped produce the Army’s military parade in June and the kick-off celebration in Iowa in July for the nation’s 250th birthday. Both events were put on without an official vote from the congressional commission, according to congressional Democrats.

The parade fueled criticism that Trump, who had long called for one, was politicizing the armed forces. Initially planned as a smaller event, it grew to the largest display of military might in the nation’s capital in at least three decades.

Then the president appeared at the Iowa event and used the opportunity to wade into culture war issues and deride Democrats, saying: “I cannot stand them, because I really believe they hate our country.”

All of the Democratic lawmakers on the commission later voiced concerns in a letter to Rios and Abergel, complaining that the events hadn’t been officially voted on and that they had a partisan tone.

“Unfortunately, recent America250 funded and branded events have been partisan and have not served America250’s purpose and mission of uniting us as a nation,” they wrote in the letter obtained by CNN.

America250 has also recently partnered with Trump-aligned groups, like the right-wing Moms for Liberty, which is known for its efforts to ban certain books from schools.

America250 and Republican lawmakers on the commission did not return CNN’s requests for comment.

Meanwhile, the White House is conducting a sweeping review of the Smithsonian Institution, demanding the museum complex’s 250th content align with Trump’s call for programming that renews national pride.

The administration has also partnered with conservative media company PragerU on an exhibit about America’s Founding Fathers, which features AI-created videos of historical figures. Education Department Secretary Linda McMahon has touted the exhibit as an example of “patriotic education.”

The Department of Agriculture reached out to fairs across the country this summer to get them on board to join the Great American State Fair initiative and has asked states to compete to have their fair chosen by Trump as the “most patriotic.”

The Department of Labor has also jumped in, with a giant banner featuring Trump and the America 250 logo now hanging from its building in Washington, DC.

Celebrations then and now

Trump was in his 20s when plans for the country’s last big birthday, the Bicentennial, began taking shape under then-president Richard Nixon.

Nixon also wanted to put his stamp on the celebrations. M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska, a historian at American University who has written a book about the 1976 Bicentennial celebration, said Nixon saw the commemoration as a way to promote his cultural views.

Nixon’s plans catered to his “silent majority,” a group of older, conservative Americans, which he courted as he railed against counter-cultural movements.

But he left office before his plans came to fruition. His successor Gerald Ford was comparatively “barely interested” in the bicentennial, Rymsza-Pawlowska said.

A federal commission doled out funds directly to states and local communities to do projects of their own and put on a few national events. There were federal programs, like parades and commemorative coins, but also more whimsical events that state and local groups put on with federal money.

In the District of Columbia, the Smithsonian recreated the Centennial Exposition from 1876 with docents in costume and an organ blaring popular songs from the Reconstruction era. Out West, riders on horseback reenacted the journey of Juan Bautista de Anza from Mexico City to San Francisco. And the American Freedom Train toured the country, giving Americans the chance to see everything from Judy Garland’s dress from the “Wizard of Oz” to George Washington’s copy of the Constitution.

But this time, with the anniversary date 10 months away, state planners say they don’t have the same level of support from the federal government.

CNN reached out to all 50 states and 25 responded saying they have not received any federal funding beyond a one-time $10,000 grant from the commission. By comparison, states received the inflation-adjusted equivalent of more than a quarter million dollars in 1972 for the bicentennial.

While some state legislatures, like Virginia, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, have budgeted millions of dollars, other states, such as Alaska and Maine, have not set aside state dollars specifically for celebrations.

Dichtl, of the American Association for State and Local History, said states are torn between requests from America250 and the White House to participate in its plans and focusing on celebrations back home.

“States need to finish their planning. They need funding, if anything,” Dichtl said. “And instead, they’re being drawn into these national plans that no one was really a part of in creating.”

And Trump’s rhetoric so far has stoked concerns that his administration’s efforts to reshape the 250th will make the celebrations too divisive.

“It’s almost like he’s campaigning again using America250 in the background. That has scared a lot of … states, red and blue,” Dichtl said.

When asked about federal funding, a White House spokesperson told CNN that the Department of the Interior is “working with the White House and the America 250 Commission to finalize the budgets for the national initiatives.” The spokesperson did not respond when asked about concerns that events are taking on a partisan tone.

Meanwhile, some state-level 250th plans have been cancelled because of the Trump administration’s cuts to state humanities councils, as some of that funding was directed instead to a “National Garden of American Heroes” proposed by Trump. Illinois Humanities has pulled a digital guide to Illinois’s historical sites and Connecticut Humanities has scaled back a 250th themed edition of a children’s book program.

Despite those cuts, state planners are moving forward with their programming.

Hawaii is organizing a simultaneous reading of the Declaration of Independence that will take place across the nation. Idaho has enlisted “Founding Father Spuddy Buddies,” or potato mascots dressed up Founding Fathers to appear at state fairs.

South Carolina has issued grants to restore historic sites. And Oregon has launched an exhibition, “The Yasui Family: An American Story,” which tells the story of a Japanese American family before and after their wrongful incarceration during World War II.

Tymchuk, the leader of Oregon’s state planning, told CNN that the lack of federal dollars was almost a relief because that meant the state didn’t have to be concerned about those funds coming with conditions on what could be showcased.

“I’m delighted to not have to take any federal money for this,” he said. “Oregon will tell the story the Oregon way.”

Gabrielle Lyon, who leads Illinois Humanities and chairs the 250th planning commission for the state, echoed that point.

“Nobody can keep any one of us from commemorating this anniversary the way that we want to and think is best,” she said.

Still, Lyon is worried that the lack of federal funding will mean that people in some parts of the country miss out on opportunities like one where she organized last month at the Illinois State Fair, giving out pocket-sized copies of the Declaration of Independence to promote next year’s celebrations.

“The Declaration of Independence is what holds us together as a country,” she said. “The ideas in it are why we have a country, but there’s this huge gap in our ability to bring people together around those ideas.”