Somehow President Donald Trump’s Great American State Fair keeps getting worse.
As temperatures topped 80 degrees Thursday, the festival’s food hall lost power, causing all the ice cream to melt, according to Fox 5 DC reporter Homa Bash.
Food hall at Great American State Fair has lost power – they have food but tell me all their ice cream has melted 😭 pic.twitter.com/5sQXOEvUVl
— Homa Bash (@HomaBashNews) June 25, 2026
The food hall wasn’t the only attraction affected by power outages. The much-hyped Ferris Wheel temporarily stopped running Thursday due to generator issues.

In order to cool off, attendees crowded under one of the only sources of shade on the National Mall—Trump’s Temu Arc de Triomphe.

The Great American State Fair was already off to a rocky start Wednesday evening when dozens of attendees were seen flocking toward the exits in the middle of Trump’s address, which was meant to kick-start the two-week event.
The line for admission appeared to dwindle on the festival’s second day.

Also on Thursday, Pennsylvania joined nine other states to pull out of the Freedom 250 gala on the National Mall, including Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Illinois, Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island, North Carolina, and Vermont.
A stall celebrating Maine remained empty Thursday, as the state did not send a delegation to Trump’s festival. Connecticut, too, was just “chairs,” according to Bash.


All in all, it seems like Trump’s festival isn’t a resounding success, but who can be surprised when the president has shrunk the meaning of patriotism to be more about him than about the country he leads?

