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Rand Paul has become the first Republican senator to break ranks on President Donald Trump’s military parade, comparing it to North Korea.
The parade, which officials estimate will cost a maximum of $45 million, will be held on June 14 to celebrate the Army’s 250th birthday, which also happens to fall on Trump’s 79th birthday.
The Kentucky fiscal hawk told reporters in Washington, D.C. Tuesday that he’s “never been a big fan of goose-stepping soldiers in big tanks and missiles rolling down the street. So if you asked me, I wouldn't have done it,” Fox News Chief National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin reported on X.
Paul said he’s not sure what the actual cost of the parade will be, and then took his criticism a step further by comparing it to the military parades of strongman states.
“We were always different than the images you saw of the Soviet Union and North Korea. We were proud not to be that. And I don't, I'm not proposing that that's the image people want to project, but I'm worried about the image that it isn't necessarily the best image to show,” Paul said.
Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, another Republican who advocates for spending cuts, told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday in reaction to Trump’s military parade: “ I wouldn't spend the money if it were me,” according to Griffin.
“The United States of America is the most powerful country in all of human history. We're a lion, and a lion doesn't have to tell you it's a lion. Everybody else in the jungle knows, and we're a lion. I would save the money, but if the president wants to have a parade, he's the President, and I'm not,” he said.
Other GOP senators have also questioned the cost of the parade, including Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins of Maine. Still, their comments haven’t gone as far as Paul and Kennedy’s.
Republican Senator Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin fiscal hawk, told Politico in an article published last Thursday, “If it costs money, I won’t go.”
The parade will feature around 6,600 Army troops and military equipment such as a WWII-vintage B-25 bomber, a P-1 fighter and Huey helicopters used in the Vietnam War, according to Politico.
Reuters reported that there will also be 25 M1 Abrams tanks, 28 Stryker armored vehicles, and four Paladin self-propelled artillery vehicles.
There will also be 18 miles of fencing and 175 metal detectors installed, The Associated Press reported.
According to NBC News, it may cost as much as $16 million to repair the streets of Washington, D.C. after the parade.
But Trump said the cost of the event is “peanuts compared to the value of doing it,” in a May 4 interview on NBC News’ Meet the Press.
“We have the greatest missiles in the world. We have the greatest submarines in the world. We have the greatest army tanks in the world. We have the greatest weapons in the world. And we’re going to celebrate it,” he said.
