President Donald Trump on Thursday took credit for making the holiday Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in the United States, “very famous,” in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
Trump told the newspaper that “nobody had ever heard of" the holiday, which 47 states officially commemorate or observe, until after he scheduled a rally initially set to take place on Juneteenth this Friday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was later changed due to criticism. Tulsa was the site of a 1921 massacre in which white residents attacked black residents and destroyed “Black Wall Street,” a district with many successful black-owned businesses.
“I did something good: I made Juneteenth very famous,” Trump said. “It’s actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it.”
He added that he asked several people close to him, and that none of them had heard of Juneteenth, but when he asked an aide during the interview, she noted that the White House issued an official statement commemorating Juneteenth last year, as it has on every June 19 since his inauguration.
“Oh really? We put out a statement? The Trump White House put out a statement?” Trump responded, according to the newspaper. “OK, OK. Good.”
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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