President Donald Trump took to social media Thursday on Juneteenth, a federal holiday, to criticize the number of “non-working holidays” in the United States.
“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!” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.
Juneteenth is the oldest regular US celebration of the end of slavery. It commemorates June 19, 1865 – the day that Union Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas, and told a group of slaves that the Civil War had ended and they were free – more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
During Thursday’s White House press briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Trump was unlikely to mark the federal holiday.
“I’m not tracking his signature on a proclamation today,” Leavitt said. “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.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden delivered remarks commemorating Juneteenth at a historic Black church in Galveston, where he said, “Our federal holidays say … who we are as Americans.”
“What we celebrate says what we value,” Biden added.
Trump has previously tried to take credit for making Juneteenth “very famous,” saying during his first term in 2020 that, “nobody had ever heard of it.” His comments came while the nation was reeling from ongoing civil unrest after George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.
Trump had previously pledged to make Juneteenth a federal holiday during his 2020 presidential campaign. Juneteenth didn’t become an official holiday until 2021, under President Joe Biden’s administration.
Since his reelection, Trump has made the elimination of DEI programs a centerpiece of his administration, cracking down on diversity efforts in the federal government with a series of executive orders.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Donald Judd and Kaanita Iyer contributed to this report.
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