Daily Despot Update

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Is Mexico paying for the fence around the petri pool?  

Tomorrow, America turns 250. But the celebration Americans will see isn't quite the one organizers spent the last decade planning.For nearly 10 years, the bipartisan, congressionally chartered America250 envisioned a once-in-a-generation civic commemoration built around history, service and local communities.

One America250 planning document imagined transforming the tiny Badlands town of Medora, North Dakota — population roughly 150 — into a living museum recreating Theodore Roosevelt's frontier experience. It hoped to draw 250,000 visitors for a nationally televised celebration on July 1 featuring A-list performers, immersive historical programming, a drone spectacular and, ultimately, the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library’s grand opening.

Instead, the opening went on this week with President Donald Trump — but without America250.

“The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library was one of America250's first signed partners and we have been supportive since before its groundbreaking,” an America250 spokesperson told Playbook. “However, America250 is not participating in the opening ceremonies.”

The spokesperson said America250 had hoped to support the opening if it received an additional $25 million in federal funding. That money never came.

Of the $150 million Congress appropriated for America’s 250th festivities, organizers expected to receive roughly $100 million but have received just $25 million to date.

Into the void stepped Freedom250, the organization aligned with Trump's White House Task Force 250, which became a principal partner for the library opening. A similar story unfolded 1,600 miles away in Washington.

The Smithsonian Institution had spent years planning a monthlong Folklife Festival on the National Mall — an ambitious gathering that would have brought together traditions like Burning Man and Farm Aid alongside local and regional festivals from across the U.S. and its territories.

Instead, that space on the National Mall this month was used for Freedom250's Great American State Fair, forcing Smithsonian to take the festival nationwide, partnering with more than 40 existing festivals across the country.

The juxtaposition reflects the reality confronting America250.

“Our programming hasn’t changed at all,” America250 Chair Rosie Rios told Playbook of the consequences of receiving just a quarter of the funding it expected. “The scale of our programming has changed.” Rios, who has served on the bipartisan commission through the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations, said the organization has stayed faithful to the blueprint commissioners approved years before Trump returned to office.

“Our guiding principle has always been ‘no politics, just purpose,’” she said.

And much of that blueprint is still very much alive. But the biggest visual centerpiece belongs to Trump’s team.

Freedom250’s finale will be what organizers say is the largest fireworks display in American history with 850,000 firework shells.

Pyrotechnico President Rocco Vitale told Playbook his company began planning in January. The 40-minute show will stretch more than a mile across Washington, launching simultaneously from eight barges on the Potomac River, West Potomac Park and firing sites running the length of the Reflecting Pool.

More than 60 technicians have spent the past week assembling the display, using fireworks sourced from the United States, Italy, Spain and Asia. The soundtrack features patriotic crowd favorites like “Party in the U.S.A.” and “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.”

“The scale of it was such a huge thing for all of us to really wrap our heads around,” Vitale said. “Once we got our heads around it, we were like, ‘Let's go do this.’