President Donald Trump spoke at Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota on July 3, 2026, saying communism is the greatest threat facing the United States.

"Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty," Trump said, according to NPR. He went on to say it was bigger a threat than World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, or 9/11. Trump also talked about immigration and praised the U.S. Army. He ended by saying "THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THE BRAVE" and "We are one people chasing one dream," per Al Jazeera and NewsNation.

The speech was part of the government's "Freedom 250" series for the nation's 250th anniversary.

How This Compares to Other Presidents

Previous presidents like Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan also spoke at Mount Rushmore. But NPR reported that their speeches focused on bringing Americans together rather than taking strong political stances. The monument is usually seen as a place above politics. Trump's speech was different in that way.

NPR also noted that Trump's language about communism sounded similar to the 1950s Red Scare — a time when the U.S. government hunted down people it suspected of being communists and pushed them out of jobs.

The official White House video is saved at whitehouse.gov.

Why This Timing Matters

Trump gave the speech about four months before the November 2026 midterm elections. Midterms are when Americans vote to pick members of Congress. Talking about communism as a big threat is a way to energize voters before an election. By connecting communism to immigration — something Trump has focused on — he linked his ideas about ideology with his real-world policies.

Trump was scheduled to give another Independence Day speech in Washington, D.C., on July 4, 2026.

What Else Happened on July 4

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who calls himself a democratic socialist, gave his own July 4 speech. He described America as "a nation of contradictions working each day towards the perfection in which it was conceived," per NPR. His vision of America was different from Trump's.

It was also extremely hot across much of the eastern United States on the July 4 weekend. Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., both canceled their Independence Day parades because of the heat wave, per NPR.