From WNYC, I'm Brian Laird. This is my daily politics podcast. It's Friday, June 12th.

As you may have heard, America turns 250 on July 4th. It is a semi-quincentennial.

Could you have named that in a trivia contest?

Semi-Quincentennial is the word for 250th.

For nearly a decade, a bipartisan group, authorized by Congress,

had been planning what was supposed to be a big and inclusive birthday party to mark the occasion, a Smithsonian-led festival stretching from the

Washington Monument to the Capitol. Instead, what we're going to have, it looks like, is something

very different, something a lot more politically charged and partisan, you might say. The Trump

administration set up a rival organization

and withheld millions of dollars that had signed a contract to deliver. And when musicians

started dropping out, as you may have heard, of a National Mall concert series after learning

it was so political, the president didn't try to win them back. He canceled

those concerts, called the performers talentless, and turned the whole thing into what he's now

billing as a, quote, rally to end all rallies with guess who at the center? Michael Shearer,

staff writer at the Atlantic, has been reporting on all this. He got his hands on budget

documents and other internal memos.

And he talked to many of the people inside the planning process. He wrote about it in a piece called

Inside America's Ugly Birthday Battle, which we'll talk to him about now. We'll also get a little

into that Flag Day UFC fight event, which is going to happen at the White House

this Sunday, June 14th Flag Day. Also, the spectator-in-chief will probably get cake because

it's his 80th birthday. No coincidence that he's holding a big party on Sunday, you think. Hey, Michael, welcome

back to WNYC. Thanks for having me again, Brad. I'll read for our listeners the opening of your story.

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