WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the apparent near end of the nation’s longest government shutdown amounted to a “very big victory” for Republicans during a Veterans Day speech that mixed the traditional solemnity of the day with a string of bare-knuckle political arguments.
With Arlington National Cemetery as the backdrop, Trump also celebrated his efforts to remake the armed services into a “Department of War” more aligned with his political goals.
After beginning with the customary paeans to service members, Trump quickly veered into a brief victory lap just a day after the Senate passed legislation to end the government shutdown.
“We’re opening up our country,” Trump said. “Should have never been closed.”
The break in the congressional gridlock came only after a critical slice of Democrats joined with Republicans and backed a spending package, even though the deal omits an extension of expiring federal health care subsidies Democrats had demanded. The measure, which now goes to the House, would quell concerns over how to pay federal workers and members of the military if the shutdown continued.
Trump also used Veterans Day to talk up his decision to try to revert the Defense Department back to the Department of War, a name it used for 150 years until shortly after World War II.
Formally changing the name would require sign-off from Congress, which the Trump administration has not received.
Trump’s refusal to abide by the traditional strictures of such speeches reflected his larger relationship with the military, which he has begun to use in unconventional, and sometimes questionably legal, ways.
James R. Stark, a retired rear admiral of the U.S. Navy who served during the Vietnam War, said members of the armed services had mixed views about Trump.
“The military is not monolithic at all,” said Stark, who also worked on the National Security Council in the Reagan administration. “I think officers tend to be more questioning of Trump than the enlisted troops because he appeals to that macho side of people. But I think that you’ll find that most people in the military are ill at ease, are very uncomfortable, with the way that he’s starting to use the military.”
Stark made his own views clear. “I think it’s ironic that President Trump is now lauding the military so much,” he said. “He uses it as his own personal toy almost.”
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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Source: The Garden Island