On USA’s 250th, Even the Party Planners Are Divided

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2:08Being here at the Great American State Fair in the nation's capital, I can definitely say no one's here at Sox. It's not packed, but you guys have to understand this is like three football fields here that this fair is on. The Great American State Fair is a 16-day event meant to mark the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Photos, videos, and reporting from the scene show people have had mixed experiences there. Here we go. Rodeo 250. We're at the Great American State Fair, and as someone from the Midwest, I would like to have a word with whoever had the audacity to give it that name.

2:45We're at the Great American State Embarrassment. The Blackluster Fair is just one of many semi-quincentennial events that have been planned in the lead up to July 4th. And Laura Bliss, a senior editor at Bloomberg Businessweek, says there's turned out to be quite a range. A ball drop in Times Square, a concert at the L.A. Coliseum. A fleet of 16 wheelers featuring a video message from the president. A national volunteerism initiative. A day of national prayer. If these celebrations seem a little disjointed, that's because they're the product of not one, but two federally funded party planning organizations with competing visions that are as polarized as America itself.

3:34One is called America 250, an offshoot of a semi-quincentennial commission that Congress created all the way back in 2016. And the other is called Freedom 250, which the Trump administration set up last year to throw more MAGA-coded semi-quincentennial events. Laura just published a story in Businessweek that dives deep into both of these groups. It is kind of a bit of a dichotomy, I think you could say, of a fairly quiet, sort of somewhat decentralized, kind of politically neutral organization. That's America 250. To one that is very much molded in the image of the president. Freedom 250 is the group behind the fair and the trucks.

4:21For months, these groups have been jockeying for influence and funding. And now that the big birthday is finally here, how did this two-party party system pan out? And what does the unofficial rivalry itself say about the nation 250 years after its founding?

4:43I'm Sarah Holder, and this is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. Today on the show, happy birthday, America. How planning for the U.S.'s 250th became tangled in allegations of mismanagement and partisanship.

5:01Laura, before there were these two competing groups, there was just one, the America 250 Foundation, which was set up by the U.S. Semi-Quincentennial Commission. When exactly was it created and what was it supposed to do? So the U.S. Semi-Quincentennial Commission was created by an act of Congress in 2016. It was under President Obama to make sure that America's 250th birthday party was a smashing success. The commission was made up of four Democrats and four Republican members of Congress, along with 16 private citizens chosen by legislators. You know, the vision was that this group of people representing, you know, both sides of the aisle were going to put something together that reflected the country.

5:45But the commission got off to a rocky start. There were a lot of tensions, a lot of kind of feuding on the commission very early on that potentially set it back to some extent into some of its fundraising goals and that kind of thing. Yeah, I mean, you reported on some of those early controversies during the Biden administration, for example, four America 250 employees brought a lawsuit against their bosses. Tell us a little bit about that. I think it was 2022 that four former employees of America 250 filed a lawsuit accusing organizations' leadership of cronyism, self-dealing, mismanagement of funds.

6:24There were allegations about, you know, having to pay out invoices for work that was never done. And eventually these parties did settle. In a filing at the time, attorneys for America 250 said that the lawsuit failed to lay out any cognizable claim. I think America 250 would say, well, this is under previous leadership. But nevertheless, I think you can point to that and just sort of see that there were problems organizationally that may have kind of slowed down the momentum in terms of planning an actual celebration. Then came the election of Donald Trump. America 250 had already gotten the ball rolling, but now a new president was in charge.

7:07At first, it looked like the Trump administration and the America 250 team were going to be able to work together. America 250 even sponsored Trump's birthday military parade and helped put on a cryptocurrency conference featuring Trump's sons. But pretty soon, the visions of the Trump administration and America 250 started to splinter. The administration replaced the executive director with a very, very young former Fox News producer who was fired not that long after swapping out some of the consulting groups that were working with America 250 with firms like Event Strategies, Inc., which is best known for organizing the January 6th rally at the Capitol in 2021 to stop the steal rally.

7:52Eventually, the kind of Trump administration folks largely went their own way and set up this other entity, Freedom 250, to basically achieve what the president wanted. Freedom 250 people will say that America 250 was ultimately not willing to kind of work with them to achieve the president's vision. America 250 people will say, you know, they were trying to take over the organization and, you know, we basically wouldn't let that happen. So just at a basic level, how was Freedom 250 created? And what do we know about how it's funded? I mean, these are great questions that we actually don't have a lot of clear answers to.

8:30And I think that that is core to the criticisms that have been raised by Democrats in Congress and watchdog groups about this organization. So what we do know is that Freedom 250 is a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Park Foundation, which sounds kind of odd. Yeah, why is that? The National Park Foundation is, right, is a very well-established, long-standing nonprofit partner to the National Park Service, which means Congress recognizes it as like a foundation that can raise money and kind of do like supportive work for this federal agency, essentially. So yeah, the National Park Foundation says that, you know, the National Park Service, which of course is run by or overseen by the Secretary of Interior, Doug Burgum, asked the foundation, again, their official partner, to set up this Freedom 250 LLC as essentially an entity to kind of hold and transfer money.

9:33And I should say, much like America 250, that has included both federal funding as well as privately raised funds. How much? We don't know exactly. In a comment for Laura Story, a National Park Foundation spokesperson said any funds received or spent by Freedom 250 will be accounted for through the nonprofit's annual financial reporting processes. The most visible difference between the two groups is how they've approached planning for the big birthday. On the America 250 side, its tentpole programming, I would say, is largely these kind of decentralized events. So that includes a grand volunteerism initiative where they're trying to sort of break a new record in the number of volunteer hours logged by Americans.

10:23They have sponsored an essay writing contest awarding grade schoolers a visit to a national park. There's a national week of flag raising. They're going to be burying a time capsule at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. They are towing America 250 branded Airstream trailers to Walmarts across the nation behind Dodge Rams. And on top of that, they've got like lots and lots of in-kind corporate sponsorships where you'll see the American 50 logo on Coca-Cola cans or Southwest Airlines planes. I think part of what it reflects is a very kind of palatable, pretty anodyne, not going to anger people and maybe not going to totally frill, you know, a lot of folks either.

11:10I think that's what the critics of this organization would say, that they've kind of struggled to capture attention, you know, with some of these initiatives. In a statement, America 250's current chair, Rosie Rios, said she's incredibly proud of the momentum the commission has achieved, with events like the America 250 ball drop in Times Square. Among other things, she said, the group recorded more than 10 million volunteer hours for America Gifts. And then on the Freedom 50 side, you have more of the events that you've probably been reading and hearing about, right? So in May, there was the National Day of Rededication, a Rededication to 50, which was a heavily Christian, you know, infused day of national prayer on the mall featuring members of the Trump cabinet.

12:01it. There was also the, you know, grand UFC cage fight on the White House lawn, which actually was branded Freedom to 50, was not technically linked to the organization, but they lend their name out to many of the other initiatives that the Trump administration has supported on its own. There's the Great American State Fair, which is happening right now. There are what are called Freedom trucks, which are a federally funded set of 16 wheelers towing exhibits on the nation's history created by conservative think tanks, essentially, and also pretty heavily featuring the president himself. And it's telling.

12:43That's a helpful image. The America 250 airstreams and the essay writing contests versus the freedom trucks. Yeah. Clear contrast. Pretty clear contrast.

12:58Responding to Laura's reporting on Freedom 250, the Department of the Interior said its employees were excited to participate in the events, adding, quote,

13:15After the break, more from Bloomberg Businessweek's Laura Bliss on allegations of Independence Day cronyism from 1976 to 2026.

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15:30Laura, why does it matter that there are two separate semi-quincentennial groups that have emerged? What exactly are they competing for? Yeah, that's such a good question. I think they're competing for attention, right? I think they're competing for, in the most concrete way, funding and influence, right? I mean, they are both jockeying for federal funds as well as the same corporate sponsors. So, you know, both sites have listed some of the same corporate sponsors on their websites. John Deere, Oracle, Palantir, Yenon Airlines, Exeger, other corporations as sponsors on their websites. And, you know, I spoke with U.S.

16:12Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman, a Democrat from New Jersey, who sits on the America 250 Commission and has talked about how like that competition for private donors has really challenged America 50 because on the one hand, they're competing with the organization that's backed by the president himself. Right. And so that's that's a big draw for a lot of these donors. They're also competing for federal funding. So in the one big, beautiful bill act, which was passed last summer that included in it was$150 million for the 250th celebrations, much of which America 250 at the time expected to receive.

16:54And as it turned out, it's only gotten about half of what it says it was promised initially. And Freedom 250 has drawn down at least twice as much as they have from that amount. How do both groups explain that? Why has Freedom 250, the new Trump-affiliated group, got so much more federal funding than America 250? Publicly, what America 50 will say is that they are still waiting on funds that were promised to them and that they have an agreement in writing for these funds but have not received them yet. But as far as Freedom 50 goes, you know, they have this kind of special relationship through the National Park Foundation.

17:34And, you know, from my conversations with them, it does not seem to be a challenge for them to kind of, you know, make work order requests and draw down the funding that they want to get. And there's also been some questions raised about, you know, the ethics of some of these corporate sponsorships, the oversight of some of these public monies. Can you say a little bit more about that? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so there was a congressional hearing a few months ago about Freedom 50 and questions being raised about where the money is coming from, how exactly it was created, its leadership. So just as one example, January AI, which is sort of a personal health app tracker app thing, signed on as a sponsor of Freedom50 shortly before becoming one of the first apps available in the new Medicare directory of services.

18:29And so, you know, watchdog groups, I think, have raised questions about, is there a kind of quid pro quo happening here? January I says these two things are totally unrelated. And then, of course, perhaps most of all, there was a solicitation package the New York Times first reported on a couple months ago where Freedom 50 is basically saying, hey, you know, donate several million dollars to our organization and we will give you direct access to the president. In comments for Laura's story, Freedom 250 said the offer to donors was for a presidential reception, not one-on-one meetings. Freedom 250 added that the organization is, quote, sparking a unifying movement across all 50 states that celebrates the American spirit and showcases our nation at its best.

19:18But Laura says that getting all 50 states on board was a challenge for one of Freedom 250's most visible events. You know, the great American State Fair pitched itself as we're going to have all 50 states and all U.S. territories, you know, on the mall represented in some way, promoting the best of their entrepreneurship and agriculture and kind of cultural products in this kind of old time State Fair tradition. and a lot of states were just not keen on participating. And some of that came down to funding. You know, they were really being asked to provide all of the money, you know, for staffing and programming these booths for two weeks on the National Mall.

19:56But also, you know, the same firm that planned the January 6th rally, the Stop the Steal rally on the National Mall was also helping coordinate this event. And from public records that I obtained through FOIA, you know, it appeared that a number of states were actually wary of being involved for that very reason. It made national headlines that shortly after the kind of slate of musical acts was announced, almost all of them or several of them pulled out or said they'd never committed to participating in the first place. And Laura, this isn't the first time that America's birthday planning has been fraught, right?

20:35You wrote about the run-up to the bicentennial and the public outcry after the Nixon administration took over that planning process. Give us that mini history really quickly. And what was significant to you about that moment in the context of everything that you've been reporting on today? Grand Americans, birthday parties, affected by critiques about cronyism and kind of over corporatization and, you know, all these things that we're hearing about this year's celebration. This is nothing new. All of the same kind of accusations were in the air around the 1976 bicentennial and even in celebrations before that, like generations ago.

21:18But I think what is significant and instructive about the 1976 event is that, yes, you had, you know, President Nixon, who kind of inherited the celebration planning from his predecessor, LBJ, and he, you know, replaced an existing commission with a number of his kind of political friends and allies. And there was a lot of outcry over that from the public. There was also a great deal of outcry over the kind of zeal that corporate America showed and, you know, showing off their kind of patriotic bona fides by, you know, branding everything from condoms to dry cleaning hangers with kind of red, white, and blue flags and all of this.

22:02Yeah, they nicknamed it the Bicentennial, as in B-U-Y, Centennial. The Bicentennial, right, exactly. What also may sound kind of incredible for our age is that the federal government responded to that. And the sort of Nixon-infused commission was disbanded and replaced. And ultimately what the federal government did was kind of move in a direction that was more supportive of celebrations and events happening at the local level and at the state level. But I think when you look back at the 76 event, you know, historians will say that this was to an extent a success because people really were kind of engaging with questions about, you know, the nation's history and how it connects to the present.

22:49And there was a real demand, I think, as part of the kind of like frustration around some of the plans, a frustration with a solely kind of like tri-corner hat, red, white and blue telling. People wanted to know the women's version. You know, people wanted to hear the perspective of Native Americans and Black Americans. And so those sort of like threads of engaging with history have clearly continued and we're still seeing them today. Yeah, I mean, bringing it to today, it almost feels like too on the nose that in a country so polarized, we have these two groups that are vying for influence, competing over who gets to mark this occasion, but also in a way over who gets to define America at this key moment.

23:36To you, what does this story mean or say about where America is at 250 years after its founding? Reporting on these two separate organizations and just sort of thinking about how they almost do represent these two visions of American politics says a lot about where we are, right? On the one hand, you've got this organization created by Congress. Its output has been maybe not incredibly thrilling to a lot of folks, pretty friendly to its corporate sponsors, but not necessarily managing to attract the attention. On the other hand, this organization that is much more in the image of the president himself, right?

24:17And, you know, who is a figure that is adored by some people and who really repels many others. And so I think just that symbolism, right, of who wants to control the narrative over where America is at its 250th birthday says a lot about where we are as a country more broadly.

24:41This is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder. The show is hosted by me, David Gura, and Wan Ha. The show is made by Aaron Edwards, David Fox, Jeff Grocott, Patty Hirsch, Rachel Lewis-Kriskie, Emma Munger, Lauren Newcomb, Naomi Ng, Julia Press, Tracy Samuelson, Naomi Shaven, Alex Ugeura, Julia Weaver, Yong Yong, and Taka Yasuzawa. Our executive producer is Nicole Beamster-Bor. To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access to all of Bloomberg.com, subscribe today at Bloomberg.com slash podcast offer. Thanks for listening. We'll be back on Monday.

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