Trump Ignites Juneteenth Controversy with Incendiary Four-Word Remark

As the US celebrates Juneteenth, commemorating the end of slavery, Donald Trump said there are "too many non-working holidays."

In a shocking post on Truth Social, Trump wrote on Thursday evening: "Too many non-working holidays in America . It is costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed . The workers don’t want it either! Soon we’ll end up having a holiday for every once working day of the year. It must change if we are going to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"

Interestingly, Trump honored Juneteenth in each of his first four years as president, even before it became a federal holiday. He even claimed once to have made it “very famous.” The news comes amid a spike in dementia fears for the president, after a strange bulge was spotted in his pants .

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But on this year’s Juneteenth holiday on Thursday, the usually talkative president kept silent until now about a day important to Americans for marking the end of slavery in the country he leads.

Asked whether Trump would commemorate Juneteenth in any way, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters: “I’m not tracking his signature on a proclamation today. I know this is a federal holiday. I want to thank all of you for showing up to work. We are certainly here. We’re working 24/7 right now.”

Asked in a follow-up question whether Trump might recognize the occasion another way or on another day, Leavitt said, “I just answered that question for you.”

The Republican president’s silence was a sharp contrast from his prior acknowledgement of the holiday. Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery in the United States by commemorating June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas .

Their freedom came more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln liberated slaves in the Confederacy by signing the Emancipation Proclamation during the Civil War.

Trump’s silence on the holiday also deviated from White House guidance that Trump planned to sign a Juneteenth proclamation. Leavitt didn’t explain the change. Trump held no public events Thursday, but he shared statements about Iran, the TikTok app and Fed chairman Jerome Powell on his social media site.

He had more to say about Juneteenth in yearly statements in his first term.

In 2017, Trump invoked the “soulful festivities and emotional rejoicing” that swept through the Galveston crowd when a major general delivered the news that all enslaved people were free.

He told the Galveston story in each of the next three years. “Together, we honor the unbreakable spirit and countless contributions of generations of African Americans to the story of American greatness,” he added in his 2018 statement .

In 2019, the AP found his statement: “Across our country, the contributions of African Americans continue to enrich every facet of American life.”

Trump's 2020 statement acknowledged the holiday again. “June reminds us of both the unimaginable injustice of slavery and the incomparable joy that must have attended emancipation. It is both a remembrance of a blight on our history and a celebration of our Nation’s unsurpassed ability to triumph over darkness," Trump said at the time.

In 2020, after suspending his campaign rallies because of the coronavirus pandemic, Trump chose Tulsa, Oklahoma, as the place to resume his public gatherings and scheduled a rally for June 19. But the decision met with such fierce criticism that Trump postponed the event by a day.