Donald Trump delivered a 30‑minute speech at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota on Friday, kicking off the United States’ 250th birthday weekend.

The celebration marks the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and coincides with the midterm election cycle. Trump’s appearance follows a pro‑immigrant address by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and a series of primary victories by progressive candidates, including three democratic socialists, in several states.

Trump praised the four presidents carved into the monument — George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln — and said their qualities of action, ambition and intelligence defined American exceptionalism. He stated that recent efforts to undermine the nation’s history and to promote progressive policies represented a communist menace and described communism as a greater threat to liberty than world wars and the September 11 attacks. He said the enemy of July 4, 1776 includes those who seek to replace the nation’s identity with Marxist ideas. Trump linked the alleged communist threat to immigrants, saying they could be expelled and that the country would vanquish communism quickly. He urged Congress to end the filibuster and pass the Save America Act, describing it as necessary to preserve elections for a century. He asserted that communists do not respect God, law, principle or tradition and that one cannot be both a communist and a patriot. The speech took place in the Black Hills, a region the U.S. government seized from the Sioux Nation in 1877. Observers said his framing of progressive Democrats as communists was widely criticized for rewriting history and marginalizing groups including Native Americans and immigrants.

Earlier in the evening, actors portraying the four presidents recited famous quotations on a blue‑carpeted stage while country musician Chancey Williams performed. A crowd member held a handwritten sign reading Trump the GOAT.

Trump is scheduled to speak on the National Mall on Saturday before a fireworks display, amid a heatwave that has disrupted Independence Day events across the country.