{"id":229680,"date":"2026-06-27T14:55:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T14:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/229680\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T14:55:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T14:55:24","slug":"pennsylvania-skipping-trump-state-fair-celebration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/229680\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania skipping Trump state fair celebration"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pennsylvania is the latest Democratic-led state to say it is skipping<\/a> \u201cThe Great American State Fair\u201d happening on the National Mall.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, due to the high cost to taxpayers and not being able to secure PA businesses to sponsor the booth, Pennsylvania will not be a participant in the Great American State Fair,\u201d a spokesperson for the state\u2019s Department of Community and Economic Development told The Hill on Friday.<\/p>\n

The 16-day festivities<\/a> are meant to showcase the history, tourism and traditions of each of the 50 states and six U.S. territories in celebration of the nation\u2019s 250th anniversary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And while all of them are represented in some way, multiple states opted not to participate in the event themselves due to financial constraints and concerns that it was becoming more partisan than originally advertised.<\/p>\n

The fair was organized by Freedom 250, a group commissioned by the Trump administration to plan a series of events marking the U.S. semi-quincentennial.<\/p>\n

The group has maintained that its activities are not political<\/a> and told The Hill earlier this week that every state and territory had been invited to join the fair. <\/p>\n

\u201cFreedom 250 is a nonpartisan organization, full stop \u2014 and our track record of collaboration across red, blue, and purple states speaks for itself,\u201d spokesperson Rachel Reisner said.<\/p>\n

But its events commemorating the nation\u2019s birthday have also been heavily intertwined with President Trump, who kicked off the state fair<\/a> with a speech on the National Mall and is also planning to hold a rally<\/a> ahead of the annual July 4 fireworks show. <\/p>\n

\u201cOn July 4th, at The Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, in beautiful and safe Washington D.C., we are going to host the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all, a \u2018TRIBUTE TO AMERICA,\u2019 the president wrote on Truth Social<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) pointed to Trump\u2019s involvement when asked by the New Republic<\/a> in a recent interview why his state would not be joining the fair.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis president routinely makes patriotism partisan and personal\u2014and it shouldn\u2019t be that way,\u201d Shapiro said.<\/p>\n

The Democratic governor also told the outlet that his aides had enlisted the help of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce to try and find companies around the state that would be interested in representing the state at the fair, but none were.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt reflects this sad state of affairs that we find ourselves in \u2014 that the president has politicized this to a degree that businesses don\u2019t want to participate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania is one of eight states led by Democratic governors \u2014 also including Massachusetts, North Carolina, Washington, Illinois, Oregon, Connecticut and Maine \u2014 that chose not to send official representatives to the state fair, most of them citing budgetary concerns.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania is the latest Democratic-led state to say it is skipping \u201cThe Great American State Fair\u201d happening on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,99448,3857],"class_list":["post-229680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-the-national-mall","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}