FILE - President Joe Biden hands a pen to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland as he signs a proclamation on the North Lawn at the White House in Washington, Oct. 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
The grand entry of hundreds of Native American and Indigenous dancers begins with the staff procession during the annual Gathering of Nations powwow in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Friday, May 25, 2025 (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
FILE - Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, right, and Bryan Newland, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior, left, present President Joe Biden with an Eighth Generation blanket from a tribally-owned business, embroidered with “Joe Biden Champion for Indian Country,” at the 2024 White House Tribal Nations Summit at the Department of the Interior in Washington, Dec. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
Native American and Indigenous dancers pack an arena during a grand entry procession at the annual Gathering of Nations powwow in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Friday, May 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
Trump says Columbus Day will now just be Columbus Day
President Donald Trump made clear Sunday that he would not follow his predecessor’s practice of recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day alongside Columbus Day in October, accusing Democrats of denigrating the explorer’s legacy as he pressed his campaign to restore what he argues are traditional American icons.
FILE - President Joe Biden hands a pen to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland as he signs a proclamation on the North Lawn at the White House in Washington, Oct. 8, 2021. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
President Donald Trump made clear Sunday that he would not follow his predecessor’s practice of recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day alongside Columbus Day in October, accusing Democrats of denigrating the explorer’s legacy as he pressed his campaign to restore what he argues are traditional American icons.
Democrat Joe Biden was the to mark Indigenous Peoples Day, issuing a in 2021 that celebrated 鈥渢he invaluable contributions and resilience of Indigenous peoples鈥 and recognize 鈥渢heir inherent sovereignty.鈥
The proclamation noted that America 鈥渨as conceived on a promise of equality and opportunity for all people鈥 but that promise 鈥渨e have never fully lived up to. That is especially true when it comes to upholding the rights and dignity of the Indigenous people who were here long before colonization of the Americas began.鈥
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Trump on Sunday used a social media post to declare, 鈥淚’m bringing Columbus Day back from the ashes.” He said on his Truth Social site that 鈥渢he Democrats did everything possible to destroy Christopher Columbus, his reputation, and all of the Italians that love him so much.鈥
The federal holiday, the second Monday in October, was still known as Columbus Day during Biden’s term, but also as Indigenous Peoples Day. That’s been a longtime goal of activists who wanted to shift the focus from commemorating Columbus’ navigation to the Americas to his and his successors’ exploitation of the indigenous people he encountered there.
Though Trump has long objected to telling the country’s history through a lens of diversity and oppression, the holiday he seeks to restore to its primacy was added to the calendar as a nod to the country’s growing diversity.
Columbus鈥 expeditions never landed on the North American mainland, let alone any of the places that would become the 50 states. But the native of Genoa became increasingly commemorated in the United States as Italian immigrants flocked to the country and politicians sought to win their support.
Indeed, it was the lynching of 11 Italian-American immigrants in New Orleans in 1891 that led to the first Columbus Day celebration in the United States, led the following year by President Benjamin Harrison. designated Columbus Day as a national holiday in 1934.
Trump has long complained about Democrats tearing down statues of Columbus, a complaint he made again in Sunday’s post. In 2017, he spoke out against a review of the 76-foot-tall statue of the explorer in New York’s Columbus Circle that then-Mayor Bill de Blasio had ordered. It remains in place today, but other statues have been defaced or torn down.
In 2020, Trump’s administration paid to restore a Columbus statue in Baltimore that was dumped in the harbor during protests against the police murder of in Minneapolis.
