President Donald Trump marked Memorial Day on Monday with a visit to Arlington National Cemetery, hours after posting a fiery message on social media that referred to his political adversaries as “scum” and levied harsh criticism against the Biden administration and the federal judiciary.
In an early morning post on Truth Social, President Trump honored America’s war dead while simultaneously attacking members of the federal judiciary as “USA hating” and “monsters,” and his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, as “incompetent.”
The all-caps message, published before 7 a.m. ET, began with President Trump wishing a “Happy Memorial Day to all, including the scum that spent the last four years trying to destroy our country through warped radical left minds,” whom he blamed for illegal immigration under the Biden administration.
President Trump falsely claimed that 21 million people entered the U.S. illegally during the previous administration, a figure contradicted by data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, as previously reported.
He attributed the influx of migrants to an “incompetent president” and criticized “judges who are on a mission to keep murderers, drug dealers, rapists, gang members, and released prisoners from all over the world in our country so they can rob, murder, and rape again,” for obstructing his deportation efforts. He asserted that these criminal migrants are “protected by these USA hating judges who suffer from an ideology that is sick, and very dangerous for our country.”
Memorial Day in the United States is a solemn occasion to remember those who died while serving in the armed forces, and extending casual holiday greetings is generally considered inappropriate.
During his first term, President Trump typically delivered prepared speeches during Memorial Day events. He participated in ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery for the first three years of his presidency before the event was moved to Fort McHenry in Baltimore in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
President Trump’s Memorial Day message followed a commencement address at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point two days prior, where he mixed traditional advice for graduates with partisan themes. In his speech, he highlighted his election victory from the previous year and discussed his grievances regarding past investigations. He also wore a red “Make America Great Again” hat during the address.
He told the graduating cadets that they would be the first to serve in a “golden age” of the military, extensively touting his efforts to eliminate diversity initiatives within the armed forces and criticizing his predecessors for engaging in what he considered to be wars of choice. “The job of the US armed forces is not to host drag shows, to transform foreign cultures (and) spread democracy to everybody around the world at the point of a gun,” he stated. “The military’s job is to dominate any foe and annihilate any threat to America, anywhere, anytime and any place.” President Trump also offered unusual advice to the graduates about avoiding “trophy wives.”
President Trump has faced previous criticism for injecting political messaging into events and settings traditionally considered apolitical. In 2018, he used Twitter to wish Americans a “Happy Memorial Day!” and emphasized his administration’s policy achievements rather than the sacrifices of the military.
In August 2024, the U.S. Army issued a rare rebuke after President Trump’s campaign filmed a video at Arlington National Cemetery gravesites of service members killed during the withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Army stated that President Trump and his staff were informed about regulations prohibiting political activities on cemetery grounds. While the Trump campaign cited permission from accompanying Gold Star families, some imagery included graves of other service members whose families had not granted permission.
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