DEFENSE/HOLIDAY/MILITARY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump on Friday [8-17-18] officially surrendered his order for a massive military parade in the nation’s capital, as spiraling costs rendered his vision of a Veterans Day extravaganza too expensive to justify. Mr. Trump sought to blame local government officials in Washington for inflating the price of the parade ‘so ridiculously high that I cancelled it’ — a charge they swiftly rejected…Several administration officials described a sort of sticker shock after seeing a Pentagon estimate that soared as high as $92 million to pay for the troops, fighter jets, armored vehicles and other military hardware that would be mustered to satisfy the president’s dream of displaying American might. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis disputed the $92 million estimate, telling journalists who were flying with him on Thursday to Bogotá, Colombia, ‘I’m not dignifying that number with a reply.’ But two Defense Department officials said the White House chief of staff, John F. Kelly, reacting to news reports about the expected high cost, ordered the Pentagon on Thursday night to issue a statement delaying the parade until 2019 at the earliest. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the communications.”
–Eileen Sullivan, Helene Cooper and Michael D. Shear, “Citing Costs, Trump Retreats From Massive Military Parade in Capital,” The New York Times online, August 17, 2018