Photo: Chris Kleponis/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Donald Trump clearly wants to flex his presidential powers by altering Americans’ calendars. But from his contradictory calls to change daylight saving time to his effort to bring back Columbus Day, which was never canceled, he’s having trouble making any meaningful changes to our schedules.
Nevertheless, the president persisted. On Monday night, he took to Truth Social to complain that the United States never took any credit for winning World War I and World War II. This seems highly inaccurate, but regardless, Trump said he is remedying the situation by declaring two new holidays: one on November 11, to mark the U.S. victory in WWI, and one on May 8, to mark the U.S. victory in WWII.
But don’t worry, these won’t be actual holidays where you get a day off — Trump knows Americans just love to work!
He explained: “We will not be closing the Country for these two very important Holidays, November 11 and May 8, World War I and World War II, because we already have too many Holidays in America — There are not enough days left in the year. We were Workers then, and we are Workers now!”
There are several problems here. First, there are actually far fewer public holidays in the United States than in other countries.
Second, May 8 isn’t the day the U.S. won WWII. Some countries do have public celebrations on May 8, the day Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allies, which is commemorated less formally as V-E Day in the U.S. But the war in the Pacific continued for several months; Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945 and formal surrender documents were signed on September 2, 1945, which is known as V-J Day in the U.S.
Third, November 11 is already Veteran’s Day — which is what Trump’s May 5 post is really about. Trump first proposed renaming Veterans Day as the more MAGA-y “Victory Day” on May 1:
But erasing Veterans Day did not go over well with veterans’ groups, as the New York Times reported:
A spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, a nonpartisan advocacy organization created in the 19th century, said the group had reached out to the White House to clarify Mr. Trump’s plans and inform the president that it continued to endorse having the holiday honor the service of all veterans.
“Since the original legislation was introduced to change the name of Armistice Day to Veterans Day — a day that is dedicated to all veterans who fought for peace — the V.F.W. has endorsed that change,” said Rob Couture, a spokesman for the organization’s Washington, D.C., office.
In February, Al Lipphardt, the group’s national commander, issued a statement criticizing the Trump administration’s plan to cut tens of thousands of jobs from the V.A., and spoke against it in congressional testimony.
Another major veterans group, the Disabled American Veterans, offered the most succinct response to Mr. Trump’s proposal.
Their statement posted online said, “No.”
On Friday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that despite the president’s post, “We are not renaming Veterans Day. It will just be an additional proclamation that goes out on that day.”
So upon further examination, Trump’s latest statement wasn’t actually about creating two new holidays, it was about saving face after the administration backed off from his “Victory Day” proposals.
You might say Trump is better off meddling with totally informal holidays. But somehow he found a way to bungle Liberation Day and Star Wars Day, too.
