President Donald Trump declared on Tuesday that he was giving Veterans Day a new name while speaking at a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.
“As you know today is not only Veterans Day, but it’s my proclamation that we are now going to be saying and calling Victory Day for World War I,” Trump said.
The president said he was recently at an event and saw that European countries were celebrating Victory Day, but the U.S. was not.
“I saw France was celebrating another Victory Day for World War II, and other countries were celebrating,” Trump rambled. “They were all celebrating. We’re the one that won the wars.”
Moments later the president rattled off watching other countries observing the holiday by that name.
“I watched it. I watched UK. I watched Russia. They were celebrating Victory Day World War II, and I said ‘we got to have a Victory Day.’ Nobody even talked about it in our country,” Trump said.
“From now on we’re going to be celebrating Victory Day for World War I, for World War II and frankly for everything else,” he declared.
Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day) is a holiday on May 8 marking the end of World War II in Europe when Nazi Germany surrendered.
Russia’s Victory Day on May 9 is an annual holiday that commemorates the Soviet Union’s victory over Germany in World War II.
European countries mark the end of World War I with Armistice Day of November 11. The date is marked in the U.S. with Veterans Day and by Commonwealth countries as Remembrance Day.
Tuesday was not the first time Trump has signaled he wanted to rename Veterans Day. He also brought it up in a Truth Social post on May 1.
“I am hereby renaming May 8th as Victory Day for World War II and November 11th as Victory Day for World War I,” Trump wrote. “We won both Wars, nobody was close to us in terms of strength, bravery, or military brilliance, but we never celebrate anything.”
On Tuesday, the president renewed his call for it to be named Victory Day for World War I and World War II.
“And we could do for plenty of other wars, but we’ll start with those two,” Trump said. “Maybe some day somebody else will add a couple more because we won a lot of good ones.”
The U.S. first marked November 11 as Armistice Day with a proclamation by President Woodrow Wilson in 1919. It was formally recognized to commemorate the end of World War I with a resolution in 1926 and became a legal holiday in 1938.
In 1954, the holiday was renamed to honor all American Veterans with Veterans Day. The change was signed into law by President Dwight Eisenhower who issued the first Veterans Day Proclamation that fall.
During his remarks on Tuesday, the president praised American service members but also touted the work of his administration including his move to rename the Defense Department the Department of War.
“Remember we won World War I, we won World War 2, we won everything in between. We won everything that came before,” Trump said. “And then we brilliantly decided to change the name of this great, this great thing that we all created together, and we became politically correct. We don’t like being political correct.”
While the president and his team now calls it the War Department, the name was changed to Defense Department after WWII by an act of Congress.
Before delivering his speech, Trump and Vice President JD Vance participated in a wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider.
The president has been accused of privately disparaging veterans and their service, but he has vehemently denied it.
The Atlantic released a bombshell report in September 2020 that said that Trump canceled his visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in France in 2018 in part because he did not believe it was important to honor Americans killed and reportedly called those buried there as “losers” and “suckers” for getting killed.
Trump’s White House chief of staff from his first term, former Marine General John Kelly confirmed the reports last year.
