The Trump administration is in early talks about a grand military parade in Washington on the US President’s birthday.

Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser said on Monday (local tiem) the administration had contacted city authorities about holding a parade on June 14 that would stretch.

Washington City Paper first reported on the parade, noting that it would stretch more than six kilometres from Arlington, Virginia, where the Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery are located, across the Potomac River and into Washington.

The US Army is in early discussions about potentially adding a parade to its 250th birthday festival, which is being held on June 14, according to a defence official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

June 14 is also Donald Trump’s 79th birthday.

The White House said in a statement that “no military parade has been scheduled”.

There has already been about two years of planning for the Army birthday festival, which will include an array of activities and displays on the National Mall, including Army Stryker armoured vehicles, Humvees, helicopters and other equipment.

“It’s too early to say yet whether or not we’re having a parade, but we’re working with the White House, as well as several government agencies, to make the celebration a national level event,” Army spokesman Colonel David Butler said.

In his first term, Trump proposed a grand military parade in the US after seeing a similar one in France on Bastille Day in 2017. He said after watching the two-hour procession along the famed Champs-Elysees that he wanted a grander one in Washington on Pennsylvania Avenue.

“We’re going to have to try to top it,” he reportedly told French President Emmanuel Macron.

But the event was cancelled after an estimated price tag of $92 million emerged, and amid logistical hang-ups. It also drew heavy criticism, both public and within Trump’s first administration.

Republication senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump backer, warned against treating it as a “Soviet-style” display of military might, while Democrat senator Dick Durbin said the plans were a “fantastic waste of money to amuse the President”.

The updated costs for the proposed 2025 event have not been revealed.

On Monday, Bowser said she didn’t know if it was being “characterised as a military parade” but said tanks rolling through the city’s streets “would not be good”.

“If military tanks were used, they should be accompanied with many millions of dollars to repair the roads,” she said.

-with AAP