Republican lawmakers are using every trick in the book to avoid attending Trump’s extravagant military parade—or commenting on its estimated $45 million price tag.
The event in Washington, D.C., on Saturday is being billed as a celebration of the Army’s 250th anniversary, which just so happens to coincide with the president’s 79th birthday. Critics have derided the parade—which will feature thousands of soldiers and 28 tanks—as unnecessary and wasteful.
Some Republican lawmakers, it seems, don’t want to talk about the colossal expense to taxpayers of making Trump’s long-standing dream for a big military parade come true.
According to Huffington Post, almost a dozen GOP Senators tried to avoid answering simple questions—if they planned to attend, and if they’re comfortable with the estimated $45 million cost—when asked on Wednesday.
Utah Sen. Mike Lee told the publication he “might be” attending, before saying of the parade’s price tag: “Uh, I have not looked into the price.”
Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer said she is going to be out of town and then dodged the question about cost by getting into an elevator, according to Huffington Post. North Carolina Sen. Ted Budd, meanwhile, responded to a question about the price with eight seconds of silence before similarly escaping via an elevator.
When asked about his comfort level with the costs of Trump’s military parade, Indiana Sen. Todd Young spoke about unrelated legislation. When confronted over the fact he didn’t answer the question, he reportedly snapped back: “I answered the question I wanted to answer!”
Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas told the publication simply: “No comment.”
It comes as just seven out of 50 congressional Republicans surveyed by Politico said they plan to stay in the capital for the parade.
One of the few GOP senators willing to outright break ranks with the president was Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who compared the parade to similar displays in autocratic states such as North Korea and described it as beneath the United States.
“I’ve never been a big fan of goose-stepping soldiers in big tanks and missiles rolling down the street,” he said. “So if you asked me, I wouldn’t have done it. We were always different than the images you saw of the Soviet Union and North Korea. We were proud not to be that.”
Speaking about the cost of the parade in a May 4 interview on Meet the Press, Trump said the price of putting it on was “peanuts compared to the value of doing it.”
“We have the greatest missiles in the world. We have the greatest submarines in the world,” Trump said at the time. “We have the greatest army tanks in the world. We have the greatest weapons in the world. And we’re going to celebrate it.”
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