On Saturday night, Donald Trump will take over the National Mall to turn the nation’s 250th birthday party into a celebration of himself.

“We are going to host the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all, a ‘TRIBUTE TO AMERICA,’” he announced on Truth Social.

The event—which is to end with what Trump is hyping as the “largest fireworks show in history”—will be the most grandiose of the 80-year-old’s self-celebrating rallies, whose history now stretches back nearly four decades.

But its tacky, tawdry essence will be the same as the very first Trump rally. It will be all about one man. It is certain to include attacks on the press. It may even be just as fake as that very first one.

That event was a public-relations stunt touted as “a grassroots show of support” by employees at his four Atlantic City, New Jersey, casinos, two days after his 44th birthday on June 16, 1990.

That was also one day after he missed $42.65 million in payments on $1.3 billion in debt. The need for counter-publicity was made clear by newspaper headlines such as “Donald Duck$” and “Uh-Owe.”

The $1 billion-plus Taj Mahal casino that towered 44 stories above the boardwalk where the rally was held had been hyped by Trump at its opening as “the eighth wonder of the world.”

It was now being called “the eighth blunder.”

What was supposedly a spontaneous show of support had been orchestrated by a Trump advertising executive.

Trump management estimated to journalists that........

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