Trump Holds July 4 Event on National Mall After Overruling Recommendation to Cancel

President Trump said he overruled a recommendation to cancel the July 4 event on the National Mall. He made the statement during remarks at the "Salute to America" gathering in Washington on July 4, 2026. Trump described several flags displayed behind him.

One dating to 1777 carried 13 stars and 13 stripes and flew at the Battle of Saratoga and at the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781, he said. A second flag showed stars in a 4-5-4 pattern. He welcomed grandchildren of Buffalo Bill Cody to the stage and pointed to a flag carried west at the start of the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1803.

Another banner was the first to fly over the Brooklyn Bridge after its 1883 completion, Trump said. A third flag flew atop a U.S. Navy flagship after the Battle of Manila Bay in 1898. Trump stated that the U.S.

Sank the entire Iranian navy, 159 ships, in a recent operation. Pearl Harbor survivor Ken Schubring, 104, saluted the flag from the USS Arizona, which sank on December 7, 1941. Arthur Rose, 107, saluted a flag carried on one of the first D-Day landing craft.

There have been 27 official American flags in U.S. history. The most recent changes occurred in 1959 and 1960 with the admission of Alaska and Hawaii. Congress passed the Flag Act in 1818, which requires any new flag to enter service on the following Independence Day.