This Saturday, on America’s 250th birthday, the U.S. government will host two marquee events on opposite coasts. One on the National Mall in Washington will feature President Donald Trump, who is billing it as “the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all.” The other will be in Los Angeles, with Queen Latifah hosting, and Chris Stapleton, Chaka Khan, and the Smashing Pumpkins performing. 

The two events are as different tonally as they are geographically. Both are the work of separate federally-aligned groups that are barely acknowledging one another in the run up to the big day. It’s a far cry from what anyone was imagining years ago, when lawmakers began getting serious about preparing for this milestone.

Internal documents and conversations with five people working closely on the events reveal a strained relationship between two committees with dramatically different visions and a lack of willingness to coordinate with each other. The result is a chaotic mix of celebrations that together feel less a celebration of America’s unity and history than the latest reflection of its partisan divide. Most of the sources who spoke to TIME declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Congress began planning for the country’s 250th Anniversary back in 2016, when it created America250, a bipartisan commission made of private citizens, lawmakers, and cabinet officials. The idea was for the commission to program nonpartisan events that all Americans could enjoy. Everything changed when Trump began his second term. On January 29, 2025, he signed an executive order creating Freedom 250, a separate group tasked with taking over the programming in D.C.

Rosie Rios, Chair of America250 Commission, tells TIME that she had recommended President Trump issue an executive order to mobilize some governmental agencies, such as NASA and Treasury Department, that were previously not included in the congressional mandate related to the anniversary. In exchange, America250 deferred all of the event planning in D.C. to Trump’s White House, given its desire to do so. 

“There were obviously a lot of plans already underway in D.C.,” Rios says, while adding that America250 is working in parallel with Freedom 250 by focusing on events around the rest of the country. 

America250’s original plans for the Fourth of July celebration in Washington was far less focused on the President. There was supposed to be a roaring parade weaving through Washington, D.C. with “diverse floats” and marching bands, a jubilant cultural festival organized by the Smithsonian at the National Mall, and multiple concerts from coast to coast celebrating “the nation’s cultural diversity.” These were some of the events originally outlined in a September 2024 playbook created by America250 and obtained by TIME. 

Once Freedom 250 took over, all that changed. The Smithsonian cultural festival, a version which had been hosted at the National Mall every year in late June, was replaced with Trump’s Great American State Fair, At least nine states declined to directly participate in it.

On the surface, neither group publicly acknowledges the tension. A spokesperson for America250 rejected the notion that there was any competition between the two, and the latest playbook published on America250’s website praised the Trump administration’s commitment and its vision for the historic milestone.

But behind closed doors, grievances are simmering over programming, budgets, and dueling marketing campaigns that befuddled the American public. Freedom250 did not respond to a request for comment from TIME.

The battlefield between the two groups has grown in the past few months, when both groups spent big dollars promoting their own brands at the Super Bowl in Santa Clara, Calif., this year.  Both groups also launched their own version of student contest: America250 first launched the essay contest with a grand prize of a free trip to one historical site of their choosing, while Freedom 250 launched a student art contest that comes with a grand prize of a free trip to the Great American State Fair. The two groups are now fighting for media coverage, with Fox News slated to cover the opening of Teddy Roosevelt’s Presidential Library in North Dakota, a key Freedom 250 event, and CNN tapping Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen to cover the Times Square ball drop on July 3th, a signature America250 event. 

A person familiar with the situation tells TIME that although Freedom 250 still sends a representative to America250’s meetings, there is no sense of collaboration between the two groups, given that America250 does not want to be affiliated with the kind of celebrations that Freedom 250 has set up: from the violent UFC fight in front of the White House, to the Freedom Truck, a traveling fleet of six 18-wheelers loaded with historic exhibition curated by PragerU, a right-wing educational organization that is often criticized for promoting revisionist versions of American and world history.

During a congressional hearing last week, Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat and one of the America250 commissioners, criticized Trump’s decision to undermine America250’s plans by creating a competing group. “President Trump couldn’t help but try making America’s 250th birthday all about himself,” Padilla said.

Leadership Trouble

When discussing how the planning around America’s 250th birthday became so divided, several people familiar with the planning pointed to one man: Ariel Abergel, a former Fox News producer and former aide to First Lady Melania Trump who Trump tapped to be America250’s executive director in May 2025.

According to one person working closely with the commission, Abergel decided to take a maximalist approach to plans for the celebration, which three people described as a “tumultuous era” for America250. One idea that Abergel floated was creating the world’s largest American flag, large enough to cover half of the Pentagon and unfurling it at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, or Lebanon, Kansas—the geographic center of the United States. Abergel also appeared to prefer televised events over lower-profile educational programs, and began promoting Trump’s divisive proposal for the 250-foot arch in front of Arlington Memorial.

Abergel “was part of the reason why there was confusion between what the White House was doing and what America250 was doing,” said the person familiar with the situation.

But another person familiar with the situation and close with advisers to the White  House says Abergel’s orders when appointed executive director was to plan for “large-scale, made-for-TV” events in a short amount of time. Some of the programs that America250 has been planning since 2016, such as the student essay contest, not only do not align with the Trump White House’s priorities, but were viewed as a “waste of taxpayers dollars,” the person said. 

The clashes between committee members and Abergel went nuclear after Charlie Kirk’s killing. Multiple outlets reported that Abergel was fired after unilaterally deciding to use America250’s social media to honor Kirk in a way commission leaders viewed as inappropriate. 

“It was an organizational issue. It was personality issues, it was a lack of vision,” Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, a New Jersey Democrat and one of the eight members of Congress on the committee, says of Abergel’s time leading the group.

The divide between America250 and Freedom 250 further soured over public funding and private donations. In 2025, America250 asked Congress for $150 million to plan for the celebration nationwide, with the understanding that $50 million of which would be spent on events prioritized by the White House. Months after the funding was approved by Congress, the Interior Department informed America250 in December that the department would transfer $50 million to the group by February 1, but the commission only received $25 million from the Interior Department, a fraction of what was originally appropriated from Congress. Meanwhile, in April, the Interior Department transferred at least $68 million to the nonpartisan nonprofit organization that housed Freedom 250, according to government spending disclosure.

“I just hope that we at least get the other $25 million that minimally should go to A250,” Rep. Watson Coleman told me last month, while explaining that many state and local historical and public engagement programs that are collaborating with America250 were relying on the funding. 

The competition has also extended to private donations. Both organizations have reached out to some of the same donors for money, according to Watson Coleman. Some corporations ended up donating to both entities; others picked one side over the other. The sponsor webpages of both organizations show some  corporations have donated to both, including Palantir, United Airlines, Deloitte, Boeing, and UFC. 

“There have been some supporting both entities, because it’s hard to say no to Donald Trump who seeks revenge on those who don’t do what he wants to have done,” Watson Coleman says.

Exacerbating the divide between the two groups is the kind of talent willing to be associated with each. In May, Freedom 250 organizers announced a roster of artists set to perform a series of concerts in June and July at the National Mall, including Martina McBride, Young MC, Milli Vanilli and Bret Michels. Within days, nearly every artist dropped out, with some claiming they were caught off guard by the partisan nature of the event. 

The concerts were eventually cancelled and then later resurrected as just two Freedom 250 events—both centered around Trump. A kick off rally to the state fair on June 24 featured country singer Lee Greenwood, whose “God Bless the USA” has become Trump’s exclusive entrance song for his rally; opera singer Christopher Macchio, who sang the national anthem at Trump’s second inauguration; and a special performance by Alexis Wilkins, the girlfriend of FBI Director Kash Patel. The second event is the July 4th celebration on the National Mall, which is set to include the Joint Armed Forces Orchestra and “national speakers,” according to the Freedom 250 website. Organizers have also previewed plans to break the world record for the biggest fireworks show, a 40-minute spectacle involving the launch of 850,000 fireworks from 10 sites.

As the national holiday inches closer, Rios still hopes to plan more national activities honoring America’s 250th birthday. She has been focusing on plans for a national volunteering effort after the Fourth, where corporations and local groups have committed hundreds of thousands of volunteer service hours. 

“Our country was founded in service,” Rios said. “July 4th is not the end. Another chapter begins. ​​We want this moment to create this movement that will be not just the legacy of America250, but the entire semiquincentennial.”