now been canceled. postponing the parade after media outlet reporting the cost this h gone from $12 million to somewhere in the neighborhood of $92 million. that s according to some reports. the president blamed local d.c. politicians for running up the cost tweeting that, quote, they know a windfall when they see it. check out this tweet from the washington, d.c. mayor muriel bowser. she hit back, she s the quote, local politician that got through to the reality star and said the parade cost would have topped $21 million. with me now, american legion national commander denise rowen. denise, welcome. obviously some shade from the d.c. mayor. how do you see this? money better spent elsewhere? well, the american legion has long had a relationship with the president. we re almost 100 years old and those 100 years we have had the opportunity to advise the president on several issues and the veterans across this nation
19 trillion-dollar debt in this country. but the second something like this comes up, you know, dick durbin says it s too expensive, jessica. i wonder why he doesn t ever say anything sells too expensive. now republicans and democrats both have no concern for how expensive things are. martha: really? the senate funding bill proved that the concern here is when you are going to be spending this amount of money and we have some veterans who are homeless in america we need as dana pointed out to fix the healthcare system to veterans to improve that if this is the best use of those funds, no one wants to take anything away from their sacrifice and contribution to this nation. if those dollars are available. there are a few people living on the street who i m sure would love have-to-have a home. martha: i m not surprised if they could get donors to pay for this parade, dana. they probably could pull that of o i m always amazed why a parade costs so much. why does a parade cost $12 m
of money. is there a reaction from anyone inside the pentagon to that? on the money side, they simply don t have it costed out yet because as the secretary is saying, they haven t come up with the final options. if you have f-35s taking off from the national mall, that would add to the price tag. depends on what the menu looks like, just how big a procession is it going to be? we have a kparngs because the 1991 parade cost $12 million in. in $2,017, that would be $22 million. here s five of the seven million was paid for by private funding. that is something i picked up in the hallway now in the last couple hours, that you could have private sourcing of funding for this. republicans and the secretary of defense feel like they re getting criticized for it, they could get private money for it. is this money well spent? that s the question