Size matters to Donald Trump, especially when it comes to crowds.
That’s why Defense Department sources tell the Daily Mail that the White House wants more people watching the much-touted military parade in Washington, DC on the president’s 79th birthday this Saturday, than celebrating new Pope Leo XIV’s ascendancy to the papacy that same day in Chicago.
The internet is full of speculation that the Vatican chose June 14 as a way of upstaging Trump, whose firm immigration policies the Chicagoan pope has spent years criticizing on social media.
The church calls the timing a coincidence, saying the celebration at Chicago’s Rate Field stadium, home of the new pope’s beloved Chicago White Sox, fell on the soonest Saturday when the team were not playing and there were no major festivals or concerts nearby.
‘The choice had nothing to do with celebrations elsewhere,’ a spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Chicago said.
The Pope himself won’t even be back in the USA – and instead will ‘be participating remotely from Rome’, with a video message to be played at the gathering, the Vatican’s news service said.
In the meantime, two insiders resentful that the Defense Department has to stage a military parade on Trump’s birthday quietly hope crowds in Chicago dwarf those in DC.
White House insiders have told Daily Mail that they’re counting on higher viewership for President Trump’s military birthday parade on June 14 as the Vatican announced Pope Leo’s ascendance celebration will be on the same day in Chicago
Pope Leo greeting faithful Catholics in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on June 8. Two resentful Trump staffers told Daily Mail they quietly hope the Chicago celebrations outshine Trump’s 79th birthday parade
The closest President Trump got to the military parade he desired was during his first term for his 2019 July 4 celebration entitled ‘Salute to America’
‘It’s safe to say that lots of us in the building are rooting for Team Pope,’ one of them, who works in the Pentagon, told the Daily Mail.
Trump first became enchanted with the idea of reviewing a grand military parade in Washington D.C. after attending Bastille Day commemorations with French President Emmanuel Macron in 2017.
He made it known at the time that he wanted a bigger military presence on Pennsylvania Avenue than the one on Paris’s Champs-Elysées that so impressed him.
On orders from the White House, the Pentagon planned such a parade for 2018 despite reluctance by military brass who objected, saying troops and military funding shouldn’t be used for political or personal purposes.
It was during that planning stage, our sources told us, when some in the Defense Department allegedly started labeling the proposed event the ‘Trumpenparade,’ a riff off the German word Truppenparade, or military march – referring in that context to the one staged for Adolf Hitler’s 50th birthday.
Trump ended up canceling plans for the 2018 parade when members of Congress, pundits and the public scoffed at the $92 million cost estimate and mocked the event as an indulgence unfitting for an American president.
The papacy’s higher-ups maintain the coincidence in timing has nothing to do with upstaging President Trump and rather was scheduled at the nearest time when a baseball game or event wouldn’t be on or nearby
A fan dressed as the Pope attends the game between the Miami Marlins and the Chicago White Sox at Rate Field on May 9, 2025, in Chicago
But the criticism didn’t dampen Trump’s enthusiasm. His demands for a huge military parade in his second term started even before he re-took office in January.
Our sources claim his transition team made it known in meetings with Defense Department envoys to Mar-a-Lago that he expected the grand event on his 80th birthday next year.
As the Daily Mail has reported, Defense Department staffers who spoke under the condition of anonymity said Trump picked former Fox News host Pete Hegseth as his defense secretary largely so he could finally get the grand military parade he long wanted.
Hegseth was seen as less likely to push back on the idea – or against any of Trump’s fancies for that matter – than other contenders for the job with more experience in the Defense Department, our sources told us.
Sure enough, Hegseth brokered a plan to hold a massive parade as part of the Army’s 250th-anniversary celebrations, which were already scheduled for the weekend of June 14 of this year – coinciding with Trump’s 79th birthday, not his 80th.
It was on June 14 in 1775 that the Second Continental Congress authorized the creation of the Continental Army, which later became the United States Army.
June 14 is also Flag Day, commemorating the adoption of the U.S. flag in 1777.
Army Spokesman Colonel Dave Butler said the parade ‘will be an excellent addition’ to events the service already had planned for its anniversary:
‘We want to make it into an event that the entire nation can celebrate with us,’ he said.
Donald Trump picked Pete Hegseth as his Defense Secretary so he could get a grand military parade to mark his 79th birthday. The Defense Secretary allegedly brokered the plan for the parade
President Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron at Bastille Day in 2017, which inspired Trump to want one of his own for his birthday
Hegseth, in trying to drum up excitement around the event, called it ‘the biggest and most beautiful military parade in our nation’s history.’
Trump, for his part, told NBC’s Meet the Press that the parade is ‘not necessarily’ about him or his birthday, but rather Flag Day and the Army’s anniversary.
The administration has dismissed criticism of the estimated $45 million price tag, with Trump telling NBC in May that the cost is ‘peanuts compared to the value of doing it’.
Army and Defense Department staffers have had strict orders as they plan the parade: ‘Make it big. Make it long. And, whatever you do, no more Hitler comparisons,’ one of our sources at the Pentagon claimed.
The procession will march through the heart of Washington, D.C., spanning six blocks and bisecting the National Mall.
It’s expected to include Bradley Fighting Vehicles and rows of howitzers making their way along the parade route while military bands play, planes soar above the city, and Army paratroopers jump from aircraft in order to hand Trump an American flag for his birthday.
In total, 6,600 soldiers, 150 vehicles, and 50 helicopters will participate in the event, military brass have said.
US Army soldiers work on an armored Bradley Fighting Vehicle on display in front of the Lincoln Memorial for US Independence Day celebrations on the National Mall in Washington, DC, USA, 04 July 2019 after Trump ordered a ‘Salute to America’
According to the plans for Trump’s parade, as many as 6,300 of the service members would be marching in the parade, while the remainder would be responsible for other tasks and support
Spectators are welcome and guests can still reserve free tickets online.
As our Pentagon insider said, political staffers from the White House have been pushing the Defense Department not to limit attendance, despite concerns about security, crowd control and whether there will be enough portable toilets to accommodate parade watchers – and any protesters.
The message from Trump’s team is, as one of our sources put it: ‘Do whatever it takes to beef up the crowd.’
In the meantime, $5 tickets to the papal event in Chicago sold out shortly after being made available on May 30.
Rate Field seats 40,615 people, but crowds are also expected to gather outside the stadium for mass prayers.
The Pope is scheduled to give a televised video message to attendees from Rome.
In the weeks since the papal event was planned, our Pentagon source claimed Hegseth’s inner circle has been working to avoid what Trump likely would see as the embarrassment of crowds in Chicago outnumbering those in D.C.
They also are scrambling to maximize livestream viewership and boost friendly news coverage of the military parade, the insider noted, ‘to beat the pope’s metrics.’
Trump has a penchant for large crowds, and a sensitivity when that’s questioned which was hinted at in January 2017 when he boasted his first inauguration had been the largest when it in fact wasn’t
The internet is rallying for crowds to show out at Pope Leo’s celebration, with one protesting effort called ‘50501’ planning to upstage Trump in a ‘National Day of Defiance’
Trump’s sensitivity to crowd size first became apparent in January 2017 when he falsely claimed that attendance at his first swearing had been the largest audience in history to witness an inauguration.
Now, social media chatter reveals some desire among anti-Trump agitators to disappoint the president’s alleged hopes of upstaging the pontiff.
An effort called ‘50501’ – standing for 50 protests, 50 states, one movement – plans to upstage Trump’s parade next Saturday by organizing a ‘National Day of Defiance.’
That will include about 700 so-called ‘No Kings’ rallies throughout the nation to, in the movement’s words, ‘Say no thrones, no crowns, no kings.’
‘From city blocks to small towns, from courthouse steps to community parks, we’re taking action to reject authoritarianism – and show the world what democracy really looks like,’ the movement’s website reads.
Meanwhile, some military members count themselves among the critics of Trump’s parade, objecting to the logistical hassles and price tag of the event.
‘Nobody enlists to march in a parade, especially on the president’s birthday,’ our source in the Pentagon said.
The White House has been contacted for comment.