Trump Mocks France Because He’s Jealous of WWII Celebrations

Photo: Alex Brandon/AP Photo

Did you forget to celebrate America’s newest holiday last Thursday? If so, that’s understandable, as Victory Day is a holiday that largely only exists in Donald Trump’s braggadocios rhetoric.

For those who do not closely follow everything Trump says on Truth Social, lately the president has been obsessed with creating new holidays to celebrate America’s military prowess. In a May 1 post, Trump announced that he was “hereby renaming May 8th as Victory Day for World War II and November 11th as Victory Day for World War I,” because he was upset that Russia and several European countries hold large celebrations to mark the defeat of Nazi Germany while the U.S. doesn’t.

There were several problems with this. World War II ended for the U.S. on September 2, 1945, when Japan signed surrender documents. Veterans’ groups were upset about the erasure of Veterans Day on November 11. And Congress, not the president, designates federal holidays. A few days later, Trump backtracked. While he claimed he was still establishing two new holidays, he said everyone would have to work and merely issued a celebratory proclamation on May 8, without taking any formal steps to make his new “Victory Day” an official holiday.

It was unclear how Trump wanted Americans to celebrate on May 8. All he did was put up a “Victory Day” Truth Social post and reference the anniversary while announcing a trade deal with the U.K. But now it seems we’re supposed to mock France and other Allied Powers? Or perhaps Trump was just being unnecessarily jerky while bragging about his new holidays to U.S. troops on Wednesday.

During a speech at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest U.S. military facility in the Middle East, Trump (absurdly) accused his predecessors of not wanting to talk about the strength of the U.S. military and noted “we’re going to have a big parade this year.” He was referring to the June 14 military parade in Washington, D.C., for the the Army’s 250th anniversary (and maybe Trump’s birthday), which was inspired by a military parade he saw in Paris in 2017.

Trump then launched into a story (at the 15:20 mark in the video below) about how he got upset about Europe’s May 8 celebrations, as “Without us they don’t win the war, we’re all speaking German”:

I’ll tell you just a little story, a week ago, May 8th. I’d call up a certain country and they said, “Oh we’re celebrating the victory of World War II today, sir.” “Oh really?” I’d speak to one of the presidents or prime ministers, or whatever, and they were so busy. “Oh yes, we’re celebrating the victory of World War II.” Then I’d speak to another one and they were celebrating.

And the fact is Russia was celebrating, France was celebrating, everybody was celebrating but us. And we’re the ones that won the war! We won the war. And they helped. But without us they don’t win the war, we’re all speaking German. Without us they’re speaking German, maybe a little Japanese, too We won the war and we’re the only ones that didn’t celebrate.

So, Trump explained, “I got my crack staff over there and we did it” — bam, two new (pseudo-)holidays! “Every time we have May 8th and we also have the date in November, that sacred date in November, for World War I, ‘cause we won that war too,” Trump said, seemingly forgetting the exact date of his second Victory Day.

Trump then called his pal French president Emmanuel Macron a “good guy,” but proceeded to impersonate him and mock the French for the fall of their forces to Nazi Germany in 1940:

Now, we love France, right? But I think we did a little more to win the war than France. Do we agree? You know, I don’t want to be a wise guy, but when Hitler made his speech at the Eiffel Tower, I would say that wasn’t exactly exactly ideal.

And I called up the president, Macron, good guy by the way, “Donald, we are celebrating our victory over the Germans.” “Oh, that’s wonderful.” No, we don’t take credit for what we do. And I said, what the hell every country I’ve spoken to in the last week is celebrating the war but us. Isn’t that terrible?

Trump then applauded himself for creating two new holidays to celebrate America’s victories in the world wars — and stressed that they’re still work days:

So we’re gonna be doing holidays. But I said it has to be working holiday because you know you can only do so many of them. We have a lot of holidays. I’m not so sure we should have them, and you don’t have to go to work. Our country has to go to work. So we’re gonna have a working holiday for each one of those two dates and we’re gonna be celebrating too because we should celebrate more than anybody else. And others did help a lot, but nobody helped like us. We wouldn’t have won, I mean the fact is, not winnable without us.

So it remains unclear how we’re supposed to mark these new Victory Days, other than doing whatever we used to do for V-E Day and Veterans Day, and perhaps taunting our allies. But hey, Trump’s speech could have been worse!

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