"If the president had been giving a speech about the need to confront global threats or the need to raise the defense budget or a straight national security-related speech, maybe it wouldn't have been inappropriate to have them there," Feaver added. But it also would have been no problem whatsoever to keep those Marines out of the frame." "Every president has committed this minor foul on civil-military terms, so in that sense, it's not a big deal. "It's also not something that is a huge scandal or huge crisis," Feaver told. Presidents routinely use the military as a backdrop in speeches, but it becomes an issue when those speeches are partisan, said Peter Feaver, a civil-military relations expert at Duke University who was a White House adviser to former President George W. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who was nominated for a position in the Trump administration but never confirmed. "The only thing worse than Biden's speech trashing his fellow citizens is wrapping himself in our flag and Marines to do it," tweeted Rep. Much of the criticism of Biden on Thursday night came from Republicans who said little when Trump used the military as a prop. The Marine Corps referred questions on its service members' presence at the speech to the White House. The Marine Band, also known as "The President's Own," was also at the speech but out of frame. "Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic," Biden said in the speech, using the abbreviation of Trump's "Make America Great Again" campaign slogan.Īt the end of the speech, the Marines saluted Biden as he and the first lady walked back inside and then followed them into the building. They stayed there, in the frame of television and livestream cameras, for the duration of the speech as Independence Hall was draped in a red light. Read Next: Sailors Face Down Abortion and Job Loss as Discharge Paperwork Delays Force Impossible Life DecisionsĪt issue is a speech Biden gave Thursday night outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that the White House described as being about the "continued battle for the soul of the nation." Before Biden and first lady Jill Biden came on stage, two Marines walked through a doorway and flanked the entrance. But Biden came into office specifically vowing to restore those norms and shield service members from politics. Biden's predecessor, former President Donald Trump, regularly flouted norms meant to protect the military from politics, including placing tanks at the Lincoln Memorial for a major political speech. It is not unusual for presidents to surround themselves with the military for a speech, even arguably political ones.
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