Philip Kennicott, the Washington Post:  The likeness of the faces on Mount Rushmore is rudimentary, and they lack even a semblance of expression. Like the pyramids in Egypt, the giant presidential faces make their statement through monumentality alone. And like the attractions that line the highways that generations of Americans have traveled — on their way to places such as Mount Rushmore — it is kitsch: gigantic, colossal, nationalist kitsch.

Fred Fleitz, Fox News: This celebration at the memorial known as the Shrine to Democracy could not have come at a better time.

Our democratic values are being challenged by increasingly intolerant radicals. These leftists misrepresent our history and seek to impose socialism and censorship on those who disagree. As we have seen over the last two months, the radical left is prepared to do this through mob rule and violence.

“Our country is in great shape,” the president told an audience filled with soldiers and medical workers on the South Lawn of the White House.

“Our military has never been stronger,” he said, promising, “Next year will be one of the greatest years we ever had.”

As for the coronavirus pandemic, Trump predicted the U.S. will “likely have a therapeutic or vaccine long before the end of the year.”

Stephen Groves and Darlene Superville, AP:  At the foot of Mount Rushmore on the eve of Independence Day, President Donald Trump made a direct appeal to disaffected white voters four months before Election Day, accusing protesters who have pushed for racial justice of engaging in a “merciless campaign to wipe out our history.”

The president dug further into American divisions Friday, offering a discordant tone to an electorate battered by a pandemic and wounded by racial injustice following the high-profile killings of Black people. He zeroed in on the desecration by some protesters of monuments and statues across the country that honor those who have benefited from slavery, including some past presidents.