defense and chairman dunford, head of the joint chiefs of staff. please join me. [ applause ] in august of 1790, by request of george washington and alexander hamilton, congress established a fleet of ten swift vestals to defend our shores. these revenue cutters would fight pirates, stop smugglers and safe guard our borders. they are the ancestors of our faithful coast guard. [ applause ] when our ships were seized and sailors kidnapped by foreign powers in 1812, it was a revenue cutter, the swift schooner thompson jefrd that swept in to capture the first british vevle
display of patriotism. the coast guard will all participate. rescue helicopters will fly overhead. the coast guard launches about 20,000 rescue migs each year and saves over 3,000 lives. some could argue they should be here as well. two u.s. army bradley fighting vehicles from ft. stewart, georgia, are parked in front of the lincoln memorial near where the president will speak. we re still waiting on the two tanks to arrive. it s not the first time tanks have come to washington. president eisenhower had them at both of his inaugural prayeds and john f. kennedy brought missiles to his prayed in 1961. the acting defense secretary and general dunford will be on hand this evening but none of the four service chiefs will be. a pentagon spokesman said the top four officers from army, navy, air force had other commitments. the british said happy
nice, but not everyone is celebrating. already protesters of rubbed on the law. some have pointed out these jets, helicopters, and blotters are coming from bases all over the u.s. not just andrews air force base in maryland. if not the first time tanks have arrived in d.c. president eisenhower had them at both his inauguration parades in the 50s. jfk, as well. mark esper, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff dunford will be attending. but none of the service chiefs will be attending. a pentagon spokesman says the four senior military leaders had other commitments. melissa? s melissa: thank you. new pressure on nike as the company defends its controversial decision to pull a special july 4th sneaker from store shelves. the shoe featured the betsy ross version of the american flag, a report of the former football player and activist colin kaepernick objected to the design. nike now saying they were concerned the shoe could unintentionally offend people.
line, isn t it, kevin, the president says bolton is hawkish but it doesn t matter because trump makes the decisions anyway. in your years of covering these kinds of actions where do the president s current actions land on whatever scale we re judging by? well, you know, he said button is the hawk but others that are advising him are not. the other who is not is general dunford, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the top military adviser to the president, he s the one who wanted to exercise caution with military strikes. you know, i think ambassador hill touched on something, when you focus on this new messaging point on maritime security. maritime security is the base level that the united states can relate to, any country in the world, it s how the u.s., you know, warms up with china when there s thaws. it s how you warm up with any nation. you try to set the basic rules for shipping and security for
in getting involved in another big middle eastern war. he s worried that his base, a lot of his base doesn t want another big military commitment. so in some ways maybe he s trying to telegraph the reason that he didn t want to go and trying to look compassionate like there would have been an escalation. we saw in reports overnight that the chairman of joint chiefs of staff, dunford, general dunford, was very worried about potential iranian retaliation if the u.s. had done a military strike. we have 5,000 u.s. forces in iraq and throughout the region. and force protection is a big issue. so this could have led to another escalation that i think trump is eager to avoid. as things stand now, adam, we ve done nothing. i mean, that status quo, i think everybody could agree is unacceptable. what do you think should happen next? well, i would hope that the president would continue with the maximum pressure on iran. i think it s working. i think there are lots of protests in iran.