WASHINGTON, United States (AFP)—Millions of Americans celebrated the country’s 250th birthday on Saturday a landmark celebration that comes at a time of deep political division, with a president determined to put his stamp on the festivities.

Washington’s traditional fireworks display on the National Mall lined with monuments celebrating the nation’s Founding Fathers has been super-sized, and is being touted as the biggest ever.

President Donald Trump has added a program of roaring military flyovers and an unusual campaign-style political rally for July Fourth, which marks the anniversary of the 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence.

The national holiday comes in the middle of a brutal heat wave, with some 160 million Americans under extreme weather warnings, wreaking havoc with planned block parties and barbecues in towns and cities across much of the country.

With temperatures in the US capital expected to reach 102F (39C) and the heat index soaring to 110-115F, the Independence Day parade in Washington was canceled.

Trump, who turned 80 last month, remains undeterred by the sweltering temperatures.

“It’s going to be approximately 107 degrees out, and I’m going to go and I’m going to make a really long speech just to show that I can do anything,” Trump said in the run-up to the revelry.

Patrick Thompson, a teacher in the Washington suburb of Alexandria, Virginia, said he would celebrate with a typical barbecue but added he would not attend the national fireworks show.

“We still want to celebrate the country and be patriotic and it’s exciting,” Thompson, a father of two teenagers, told AFP.

“But it’s so weird because it’s got this… strange mar over it because of Trump and just like the 250 thing that turns out to not be what anyone hoped.”

– ‘Renewed attack’ –

Late Friday, Trump visited the iconic Mount Rushmore monument in South Dakota for an address under the gaze of four of his legendary predecessors, etched in granite — George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.

While he lauded US exceptionalism and praised the country’s past leaders, he also said America’s identity was under “renewed attack” from domestic “radicals and extremists,” saving particular ire for a “resurgence of the communist menace.”

It is a theme that the Republican leader has repeatedly hammered home in recent weeks, as the anti-establishment left of the Democratic Party won a string of US primary victories.

On Friday, Trump said there has been an attempt to “beat the American spirit out of us, alienate us from our history” in recent years.

While his language fell short of the more violent anti-immigrant rhetoric he has wielded in past speeches, the underlying message was clear.

“You do not have to be born here, but you do have to love what we have built,” he said.

Pope Leo XIV — the Catholic Church’s first US pope, who has sparred with Trump over his administration’s immigration crackdown — used the occasion to say that his vision of the American dream includes an inclusive society.

“Defending human life also includes welcoming, protecting and assisting immigrants, whose hopes, sacrifices and contribution have formed part of the history of this country from its very beginning,” the Chicago-born pontiff said.

In London, King Charles III said Britain and the country formed from its former colonies would “continue to defend our shared values.”

– Celebration and reflection –

For Americans, the 250th anniversary festivities offer a moment for reflection as well as celebration.

After two and a half centuries of triumphs and tragedies, slavery and freedom, civil war and world wars, multiple surveys indicate a nation divided about where it is and where it’s going.

A Quinnipiac University Poll showed 61 percent of Americans thought the US was not living up to the ideals stated in the Declaration of Independence — though most Republicans think it does, and most Democrats think it doesn’t.

Outside Washington, New York is hosting an international parade of tall ships, with Vice President JD Vance in attendance, flyovers and its own massive fireworks display.

In Philadelphia, lines formed early despite the heat to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed.

Concerts will be staged from Boston to Los Angeles.

For Karisa Tavassoli, an Iranian American educator in Atlanta, the basics of the American dream still ring true.

“I have safety, I have freedom of speech, I have freedom of religion, I can wear whatever I want as a woman,” she told AFP.

“There are many flaws here, but we have something very special that’s worthy of protecting.”