The Slow-Motion Implosion of the Great American State Fair
Iowa got a speech in July 2025. The National Mall got the rest. Nobody got what was promised.
The musical group Milli Vanilli was famous for exactly one thing: not actually performing the music attributed to them. It is, therefore, fitting that Fab Morvan of Milli Vanilli was among the acts who pulled out of the Great American State Fair earlier this month, declaring the whole enterprise had become “a circus.” When Milli Vanilli is backing out of your event on authenticity grounds, the situation has reached a particular depth.
This is where three years of promises have landed.
Trump first floated the Great American State Fair concept in 2023, when he was flying helicopters over the Iowa State Fairgrounds and eating pork chops on a stick and making clear that Iowa, the first-in-the-nation state that had been so good to him, would be the host of something grand. He described a “year-long exhibition” at the Iowa State Fairgrounds with “pavilions from all 50 states,” a massive, sustained celebration culminating in America’s semiquincentennial. Iowa was the hook. Iowa was the peg. Iowa was, as Trump put it, a “legendary” fairground that would “welcome millions and millions of visitors from around the world to the heartland of America.”
That would have been awesome. But that is not what happened.
Following Trump’s 2024 election victory, the CEO of the Iowa State Fair told the Des Moines Register that “no formal request or inquiry has been made for use of the Iowa State Fairgrounds at this time.” The idea had never been developed. By the time Trump showed up in Des Moines on July 3, 2025, to officially kick off the America 250 celebration, the concept had been quietly reformatted: the Great American State Fair would “travel to fairgrounds across the country, culminating in a giant patriotic festival next summer on the National Mall, featuring exhibits from all 50 states.” Iowa went from host to participant. The pork chop on a stick was not mentioned.
Even that version never materialized.
The Great American State Fair 3.0, the National Mall version organized by Freedom 250 (a public-private partnership established by Trump executive order), was going to be a genuine spectacle. A 16-day fair featuring more than 150 exhibits, a giant Ferris wheel, a scaled-down version of the president’s proposed Triumphal Arch, an “American Heartland Arena” with trick roping and cattle drives, and a concert series running Thursday through Saturday nights. It was supposed to have legitimate World’s Fair energy, at least on paper.
Then the talent started leaving.
The Commodores, Martina McBride, Morris Day and the Time, Bret Michaels, and Young MC all publicly distanced themselves from the concert series, with most saying the event had been misrepresented to them as nonpartisan. McBride put it plainly: she had been sold a nonpartisan event, which turned out to be misleading. Fab Morvan of Milli Vanilli also withdrew, saying he had not signed up for a “circus.” The acts that remained included Vanilla Ice1, a committed Trump supporter who has performed at Mar-a-Lago. Flo Rida, of “Low” fame, apparently stayed in, his position on the partisan question unresolved.
Trump’s response was characteristically subtle. He posted on Truth Social that he was thinking about bringing “the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, and he does so without a guitar,” namely himself, to replace the “highly paid, Third Rate ‘Artists.’”2 He then floated canceling the concerts entirely in favor of a MAGA rally. Freedom 250’s official event page, written in the president’s recognizable cadence, declared: “We don’t want singers with no talent, but big fees to put you to sleep; we’ve told them all to stay home.”
It was unclear, then, why they were asked to perform in the first place.
The opening ceremony on Wednesday night proceeded roughly as you would expect. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy delivered a warmup speech in which he called the departed artists “libtards.” The national anthem performer was Alexis Wilkins, the girlfriend of FBI Director Kash Patel. After critics raised obvious ethics concerns about her being paid for the performance, Wilkins announced she would not be accepting payment, calling it a “great honor.”3 The Army Band played “Gloria,” a Laura Branigan cover that has become a staple at Trump rallies.4
Roughly half the crowd wore Trump slogans or his likeness on their clothing. One attendee told NBC News it was his 116th Trump rally.5
The crowd itself became the next controversy. Trump claimed on Truth Social that 45,000 people attended. NBC reported the figure as “more than 1,000.” The Washington Post reported that “the crowd thinly covered an area about the length of the National Museum of American History, smaller than some summer outdoor movie screenings.” A video of attendees leaving mid-speech went viral. Trump disputed this, insisting that “Everybody stayed right until the end.” Newsweek’s analysis of C-SPAN footage found the moment in question occurred at 9:08 p.m.
Several Democratic-led states, including Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Connecticut, North Carolina, Illinois, and Maine, declined to participate, citing costs, limited resources, and concern that the supposedly nonpartisan celebration had become overtly political. The Maine pavilion, a showcase for what is supposed to be a proud state’s heritage and lobster industry, was represented at the fair by an empty room with some chairs and facts on the wall. Maine sent no delegation. Somebody printed some lobster information and left. In the North Carolina tent, somebody put up a version of the North Carolina flag that has never existed.
This is the endpoint of a three-year project. A year-long World’s Fair at the Iowa State Fairgrounds became a traveling program nobody planned, a 16-day National Mall event that shed half its talent, drove away a fifth of the states, and opened to a crowd the president needed to inflate by roughly a factor of 45. The “nonpartisan” celebration required its national anthem singer to waive her fee under ethics scrutiny, its warmup speaker to drop a slur, and its headliner to describe himself as more popular than Elvis.
And that’s before we even get to the power going out at the food pavilions, the Ferris Wheel not working, and the eerie emptiness of a fair from a lack of attendees.
The odyssey of the Great American State Fair is a microcosm of the second Trump Administration. Iowa got a speech in July 2025. The National Mall got the rest. And nobody got what was promised.
Mr. Ice was scheduled to perform on Friday night. It was cancelled due to the anticipated weather.
Ironically, the 4th rate artists usually end up in Trump’s camp.
At least it wasn’t YMCA.
This person needs an intervention.