Unfurling the new Space Force flag in the Oval pic.twitter.com/PXVOmVQmcy
— Steve Holland (@steveholland1) May 15, 2020
The big reveal took place Friday afternoon in the Oval Office during a signing ceremony for the 2020 Armed Forces Day proclamation and was attended by military leaders.
- During the event Trump touted the development of what he referred to as a “super duper missile.”
- "The flag takes the key and central elements of the seal and places them on a black field fringed in platinum with the words 'United States Space Force' and Roman numerals MMXIX (2019) below," an administration official told Fox News.
Trump says that the Space Force is producing a missile that travels 17 times faster than others - calling it a "super-duper missile". pic.twitter.com/lqFOFrS82M
— World Updates (@Rntk____) May 15, 2020
Twitter erupts: The news prompted a flurry of passionate reactions on Twitter.
Several of the president’s critics on social media accused Trump of diverting resources away from supposedly more worthy endeavors.
- Avowed NeverTrumper Tom Nichols expressed his wish for Joe Biden to "End the Space Force silliness."
If I had a wishlist for things Biden could do to make a small government conservative like me happy that would probably fly with liberals as well?
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) May 15, 2020
- End the Space Force silliness
- Disestablish the Department of Homeland Security
- Tear up the Patriot Act renewals and start over https://t.co/q6cZ5S5xmj
- Former MSNBC host Toure Neblett voiced outrage that the Trump administration was looking to space during a coronavirus pandemic.
"We have a Space Force and not a Pandemic team. We have a Space Force while Trump is ramping down the Coronavirus Task Force. We have a fucking Space Force even though there’s nothing out there and 100,000k dead Americans down here on Earth. This is fine," he said.
But others celebrated Space Force's mission to defend American interests.
- "All kidding aside about this flag's truly epic design, I can almost guarantee that years from now the creation of the Space Force will be widely viewed as a prescient & wise move as China & other nations challenge the national security of the United States in the arena of space," tweeted Washington Examiner reporter Jerry Dunleavy.
- Trump directed the Defense Department to establish the Space Force in 2018, saying at the time that “it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space, we must have American dominance in space.”