Trump celebrates Navy amid government shutdown, National Guard deployments
By Kevin Liptak, CNN
Norfolk, Virginia (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 Defense Department informed 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 planned as a smaller event, 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 temporarily blocked 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.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
