Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) mocked President Trump on Friday after the president blamed D.C. officials for quoting high costs for a military parade, which he canceled hours earlier.
Bowser in a tweet said that she had gotten through to the “reality star in the White House” that a large-scale military parade honoring veterans in the city was a bad idea.
{mosads}
“Yup, I’m Muriel Bowser, mayor of Washington DC, the local politician who finally got thru to the reality star in the White House with the realities ($21.6M) of parades/events/demonstrations in Trump America (sad),” she wrote.
Trump had said “local politicians” in D.C. were responsible for the cost when he announced the cancelation, though he offered no specific evidence.
Trump accused District politicians of quoting high costs to the Pentagon in an attempt to dissuade the Trump administration from hosting the planned parade in the city, despite an estimate from Pentagon officials on Thursday citing the agency’s own costs as the largest factor on the parade’s expected $92 million price tag.
The president offered no specific evidence of the quoted costs.
The president announced that he would cancel the parade, originally planned for November, and attend an Armistice Day parade in Paris after the Pentagon initially said it was exploring opportunities in 2019 for the parade.
“The local politicians who run Washington, D.C. (poorly) know a windfall when they see it. When asked to give us a price for holding a great celebratory military parade, they wanted a number so ridiculously high that I cancelled it. Never let someone hold you up!” Trump tweeted.
The high costs of the parade had become a target for Democrats and Republicans in Congress, who questioned Trump’s plan to spend tens of millions of dollars during wartime on the ceremonial exercise.