A large panel of CNN contributors give reactions and takes blasting President Trump's Fourth of July "Salute to America" event and his speech talking about American and military history.



Former Admiral John Kirby said he was "troubled about the militaristic tone of the whole thing" and mocked President Trump's speech as "essentially 8th-grade history that was fairly sepia-toned and saccharine in its depth and context."





"I could have gotten this off of watching Schoolhouse Rock," Kirby added.



CNN's Ryan Lizza said the speech was "very basic" and seemed like he was "reading a Wikipedia page about historical events." Lizza also compared the speech to "a Schoolhouse Rock version of history or seventh or 8th grade research report," but said the president deserved credit "for not going off on a lot of sort of lunatic tangents."



CNN commentator David Swerdlick was slightly more kind, saying "content-wise, it was fine." "It was a history lesson, like everyone else said, it was a Wikipedia entry," he said.



CNN's April Ryan made the third comparison to Schoolhouse Rock, but listed a variety of boilerplate Trump complaints including the Khan family, John McCain, the Central Park Five, Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, and women's suffrage. "There are a lot of things in the speech that it may have been Schoolhouse Rock Trump version. But nonetheless we still have to fact check. And it was his attempt at a soaring moment for history," Ryan said.



Former CIA officer Phil Mudd was slightly more blunt, saying he "hated it."



"Let me tell you something," Mudd said. "When we were in the midst of July 4th after 9/11 when I was at the CIA, I thought we were celebrating the defense of ideals, the right to live free and fair, the right to live according to the documents that our Founding Fathers established, the right to -- of every person, every citizen in the country to pretend like they can be president, the rate to have economic opportunity. I didn't realize we were fighting the chance to pay for guns, for weapons. I did national security. I thought this was about ideals and now we made it about the military."



"Can we actually have a day with hamburgers, hotdogs and a few beers without a politician? Please, one day," Mudd begged.