Could Fox News kill the military parade?
“I don’t know. It seems like a waste of money,” said “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade on Wednesday morning.
Later in the morning, retired Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, a Fox News strategic analyst, blasted the idea in a chat with host Bill Hemmer. After Hemmer took a shot at the media for comparing a U.S. military parade to similar spectacles in Russia and North Korea — and pointing out that the model is non-authoritarian France — Peters said: “Bill, I served in the military for almost 22 years, enlisted man and officer. Let me tell you: I value our tradition of civilian control of the military. . . . I don’t like the image of heavy weapons parading through our streets and the streets of American cities. . . . We would throw the training schedules out the window.”
Moving right ahead, retired Gen. Jack Keane summed up his feelings this way: “We don’t parade. We train and we fight, all right?” he told host Jon Scott.
Shep Smith: Give Trump 'little mini replicas' of tanks instead of paradeJennifer Griffin, Fox News’s national security correspondent, appeared on air at least twice Wednesday afternoon to note that Pentagon officials had responded with a “collective eye-roll,” and had initially regarded the whole idea as a joke. Military brass, said Griffin, have “much more pressing issues” in front of them than “planning a parade.”
Fox News host Shep Smith on Wednesday mocked President Trump’s request for a military parade, saying he could instead be given plastic replicas of military equipment.
His comments came after Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin reported that she’s heard from military officials that they have “more pressing and important issues on their plates, and planning a parade is not one of them.”
“He could go see the tanks at a military base if he wanted to,” Smith responded.
“Or they could give him replicas, little mini replicas. I mean, he wants to see what he has,” he added.
"You can get the little plastic ones and lay them out on the table and say ‘here you go.' "
“Thanks but No Tanks!"
Much of Congress is not on board with Trump's paradeThat's what the D.C. Council, Washington's local legislative body, had to say about President Trump's plans to host a military celebration in the nation's capital.
Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, also a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was not enthusiastic about Trump's idea for a parade.
Lawmakers balk at potential cost of Trump’s military parade"It hadn't been a priority at all," he told CNN. "If it would save money not to do it, we probably ought to look at that."
Durbin wrote a letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis requesting an explanation on how much a military parade would cost taxpayers, which Democratic Sens. Gary Peters of Michigan, Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Patrick Leahy of Vermont also signed.
“At a time of war, with American service members serving in harm’s way, such a parade seems to be inappropriate and wasteful,” the senators wrote.This Is A Bad Idea,' Retired Army General Says Of Trump's Call For Military Parade
retired Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who served during Operation Iraqi Freedom, says Trump’s idea is “not about the military.”
“This is about assuaging a fragile ego that we’ve got with this commander in chief,” Eaton tells Here & Now‘s Robin Young.'Napoleon in the making': Trump's military parade plan sparks backlash
Democratic lawmakers leaped to pillory Trump's plan as an "idiot" and "authoritarian" idea from a "Napoleon in the making."
Meanwhile support was thin on the ground, even among Trump's advocates in Congress.
The South Carolina Republican told CNN’s Manu Raju that parades celebrating the military aren’t necessarily bad, but he rapped Trump’s plan for a display of military hardware in Washington, D.C.
“(It’s) kind of cheesy and a sign of weakness,” Graham told the reporter.
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