On June 14, Trump celebrated his 79th birthday and the 250th anniversary of the United States Army with a parade.
White House Communications Director and sycophantic Trump loyalist, Steven Cheung, the Defense Department, and America250, which is a nonprofit complimenting the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, lied that 250,000 people attended the parade.
Crowd-counting expert and journalism professor Steve Doig called the claim laughable. The White House yet again contradicted Trump and his allies, admitting that fewer than 200,000 people attended Trump’s pathetic parade. At best, slightly fewer than 100,000 people attended.
According to the WMATA database, entries at nine Metro stations near the parade and festival grounds were up compared to the same Saturday in 2024 (June 15). There were 11,000 entries at Federal Triangle on June 14, 2025, five times the 2,204 entries on June 15, 2024.
There were 87,500 entries total at Archives, Farragut North, Farragut West, Federal Triangle, Foggy Bottom-GWU, McPherson Sq, Metro Center, L’Enfant Plaza and Smithsonian stations on June 14, 2025, compared with 49,200 on June 15, 2024, according to the WMATA database.
Snopes
The scope of the parade itself also failed to match Trump’s grandiose ambitions. Only 6,600 soldiers, 150 vehicles, and about over 50 aircraft took part in it. Worse yet, there were signs of malicious compliance among the soldiers who took part in it. Soldiers are trained ad nauseam to march in a precise manner. Many of the participating soldiers walked out of sync, speeding up and slowing down at various moments.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which participated in the anti-Trump No Kings protests that occurred that same day, estimated that over five million people attended. Others have claimed that as many as eleven million people partook in the largely peaceful demonstrations. The protests consisted of Americans across the political spectrum and successfully united the disparate, and, before that point, confused and scattered opposition to Trump.
The humbling parade and the overwhelmingly more successful anti-Trump rallies indicate a turning point in Trump’s second term, with his dictatorial aspirations and veneer of political invincibility taking a significant blow. It is now a question of translating the momentum of the No Kings protests into votes and long-term political support.
