Presidential historian Jon Meacham said President Donald Trump has effectively hijacked America’s 250th anniversary by making the country’s birthday all about himself. Asked on Sunday’s “The Weekend” whether Trump’s behavior had any precedent, Meacham told Laura Barrón-López, “Not for a president, but for a monarch, absolutely.”

On Friday, Trump is set to deliver a speech at Mount Rushmore for an event that will feature military bands, flyovers and a fireworks display. It will be hosted by Freedom 250, the same group behind other events marketed as celebrations of the country’s independence, including Trump’s Great American State Fair on the National Mall and the controversial UFC fight that took place on the White House South Lawn earlier this month. 

“The reason the first week of July is the occasion on which we commemorate the nation’s beginning is because of a very specific document,” Meacham explained, referring to the Declaration of Independence. 

The historian called the document a “mission statement,” adding that most of it functioned as “a list of grievances” against the British monarch, King George III, who was “acting unilaterally” and “outside his constitutional bounds.”

Ahead of July 4, Meacham advised every American to reread the country’s founding document, which he said was “really important” in this particular political moment, as Trump’s actions appear closer to that of a king than a democratically elected president. 

“We’re not messing around anymore,” he said. “This isn’t fourth grade civics, right? This is an advanced, complicated test of our civic understanding of who we truly have to be.”

The “central rhetorical task of a president in a moment like this is to talk about us and not him,” Meachem told MS NOW, adding that he believes the story of America is “not about one person, by definition; it is about all of us.”

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Allison Detzel

Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”