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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
Trump celebrates Navy amid government shutdown, National Guard | |
deployments | |
By Kevin Liptak, CNN | |
Updated: | |
6:47 PM EDT, Sun October 5, 2025 | |
Source: CNN | |
A government shutdown that could leave some military service members | |
without paychecks didn’t stop President Donald Trump from visiting | |
one of the largest naval installations in the world on Sunday to | |
celebrate the US Navy’s 250th birthday. | |
Trump told a large crowd of sailors in Norfolk, Virginia, that service | |
members will still be paid despite the government shutdown, which he | |
blamed Democrats for creating. | |
“We will get our service members every last penny. Don’t worry | |
about it,” Trump said to applause and cheers. The active-duty and | |
reserve military members in late September that they would not be paid | |
after September 30 until Congress approves funding for the agency, | |
according to a memo viewed by CNN. | |
He also announced support for “across-the-board pay raises for every | |
sailor and service member in the United States Armed Forces,” before | |
likening Democrats to a “gnat” above his and the Republican | |
Party’s shoulders. | |
“But, we have to take care of this little gnat that’s on our | |
shoulder called the Democrats,” he said. “They want to give all of | |
our money to illegal aliens that pour into the country.” | |
Trump was joined by first lady Melania Trump and Defense Secretary Pete | |
Hegseth, who each gave remarks. | |
The event is Trump’s latest effort to celebrate the US military ahead | |
of next year’s national semiquincentennial. He hosted a parade in | |
Washington over the summer to celebrate the Army’s birthday, though | |
he later voiced some private disappointment at aspects of the | |
spectacle. | |
The parade also fueled criticism that Trump, who had long called for | |
one, was politicizing the armed forces. Initially , it grew to the | |
largest display of military might in the nation’s capital in at least | |
three decades. | |
Throughout the Sunday speech, Trump’s political lines didn’t draw a | |
major response from the crowd. Most attendees watched politely, only | |
applauding at his references to the Navy’s strength and getting pay | |
raises for military members. | |
Trump also touted his deployment of the National Guard to US cities, | |
telling the sailors that he will send in “whatever is necessary” to | |
combat crime. | |
“You know what? We send in whatever is necessary. People don’t | |
care. They don’t want crime in their cities,” he said. | |
Trump has previously announced the authorization for hundreds of | |
National Guard members to deploy to Chicago; Memphis, Tennessee and | |
Portland, Oregon. On Saturday, a judge his plan to deploy troops to | |
Portland, but Trump quickly ordered the California National Guard to | |
deploy to Oregon instead. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has | |
announced plans to sue over the deployment. | |
Trump spoke Sunday alongside the USS Kearsarge and the USS Harry S. | |
Truman, the latter of which returned to Norfolk in June from a lengthy | |
deployment in the Red Sea battling Houthi rebels in Yemen. | |
There were no obvious signs that the government shutdown was affecting | |
the celebration as thousands of sailors in dress whites gathered to | |
hear from the commander in chief. Trump, writing on social media last | |
week, accused Democrats of trying to “destroy this wonderful | |
celebration of the U.S. Navy’s Birthday.” | |
Trump told military brass assembled last week at an unusual in-person | |
gathering in Quantico, Virginia, that the US wasn’t building enough | |
Navy ships — and that some of the ones they were building were | |
“ugly.” | |
“I’m a very aesthetic person, and I don’t like some of the ships | |
you’re doing aesthetically,” he told the group. | |
He said he was aiming to add more than a dozen ships to the Navy’s | |
fleet with an increase in military spending. | |
At the same event, Trump proposed using US cities as training ground | |
for the military. In the days since, he’s ramped up federal law | |
enforcement interventions in Portland and Chicago, against the wishes | |
of those cities’ leaders. | |
Sunday’s event — called “Titans of the Sea” — was intended to | |
showcase the Navy’s “cutting-edge fleet, and inspire the next | |
generation of warriors to carry America’s strength across every | |
ocean,” a release from the organizers said. | |
CNN’s Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, Casey Gannon and Emily Condon | |
contributed to this report. | |
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