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\n Photo: Alex Brandon\/AP Photo\n <\/p>\n
Did you forget to celebrate America\u2019s newest holiday last Thursday? If so, that\u2019s understandable, as Victory Day is a holiday that largely only exists in Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s braggadocios rhetoric.<\/p>\n For those who do not closely follow everything Trump says on Truth Social, lately the president has been obsessed with creating new holidays<\/a> to celebrate America\u2019s military prowess. In a May 1 post<\/a>, Trump announced that he was \u201chereby renaming May 8th as Victory Day for World War II and November 11th as Victory Day for World War I,\u201d 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\u2019t.<\/p>\n There were several problems with this. World War II ended for the U.S. on September 2, 1945, when Japan signed surrender documents. Veterans\u2019 groups were upset about the erasure of Veterans Day on November 11. And Congress, not the president, designates federal holidays<\/a>. A few days later, Trump backtracked. While he claimed he was still establishing two new holidays<\/a>, 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 \u201cVictory Day\u201d an official holiday.<\/p>\n It was unclear how Trump wanted Americans to celebrate on May 8. All he did was put up a \u201cVictory Day\u201d Truth Social post<\/a> and reference the anniversary while announcing a trade deal with the U.K. But now it seems we\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n During a speech<\/a> 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 \u201cwe\u2019re going to have a big parade this year.\u201d He was referring to the June 14 military parade<\/a> in Washington, D.C., for the the Army\u2019s 250th anniversary (and maybe Trump\u2019s birthday), which was inspired by a military parade he saw in Paris in 2017.<\/p>\n Trump then launched into a story (at the 15:20 mark in the video below) about how he got upset about Europe\u2019s May 8 celebrations, as \u201cWithout us they don\u2019t win the war, we\u2019re all speaking German\u201d:<\/p>\n I\u2019ll tell you just a little story, a week ago, May 8th. I\u2019d call up a certain country and they said, \u201cOh we\u2019re celebrating the victory of World War II today, sir.\u201d \u201cOh really?\u201d I\u2019d speak to one of the presidents or prime ministers, or whatever, and they were so busy. \u201cOh yes, we\u2019re celebrating the victory of World War II.\u201d Then I\u2019d speak to another one and they were celebrating. <\/p>\n And the fact is Russia was celebrating, France was celebrating, everybody was celebrating but us. And we\u2019re the ones that won the war! We won the war. And they helped. But without us they don\u2019t win the war, we\u2019re all speaking German. Without us they\u2019re speaking German, maybe a little Japanese, too We won the war and we\u2019re the only ones that didn\u2019t celebrate. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n So, Trump explained, \u201cI got my crack staff over there and we did it\u201d \u2014 bam, two new (pseudo-)holidays! \u201cEvery time we have May 8th and we also have the date in November, that sacred date in November, for World War I, \u2018cause we won that war too,\u201d Trump said, seemingly forgetting the exact date of his second Victory Day.<\/p>\n Trump then called his pal French president Emmanuel Macron a \u201cgood guy,\u201d but proceeded to impersonate him and mock the French for the fall of their forces to Nazi Germany in 1940:<\/p>\n 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\u2019t want to be a wise guy, but when Hitler made his speech at the Eiffel Tower, I would say that wasn\u2019t exactly exactly ideal. <\/p>\n And I called up the president, Macron, good guy by the way, \u201cDonald, we are celebrating our victory over the Germans.\u201d \u201cOh, that\u2019s wonderful.\u201d No, we don\u2019t take credit for what we do. And I said, what the hell every country I\u2019ve spoken to in the last week is celebrating the war but us. Isn\u2019t that terrible? <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Trump then applauded himself for creating two new holidays to celebrate America\u2019s victories in the world wars \u2014 and stressed that they\u2019re still work days:<\/p>\n So we\u2019re 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\u2019m not so sure we should have them, and you don\u2019t have to go to work. Our country has to go to work. So we\u2019re gonna have a working holiday for each one of those two dates and we\u2019re 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\u2019t have won, I mean the fact is, not winnable without us. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n So it remains unclear how we\u2019re 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\u2019s speech could have been worse!<\/p>\n\n
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