Trump Goes On Strange Rant About World War II When Asked About Birthday Military Parade
President Donald Trump went on a strange rant about World War II when he was asked about his upcoming military parade, revealing a phone conversation in which he and Russian President Vladimir Putin humorously riffed about everyone “hating Russia” but loving Germany and Japan now.
Trump has a long history of oddball (and worse) commentary about World War II, which reared its head recently when he made a crack about Nazi Germany during a bilateral meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
It happened again Thursday as the president held court for over an hour during a bill signing photo op that turned into a Q&A.
A MAGA-friendly reporter asked him about Saturday’s parade to ostensibly celebrate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army — which also coincides with Trump’s 79th birthday.
That question prompted Trump to reveal his exchange of “what’s-the-deal-with-that” observational humor with Putin over how alliances could shift over the course of 80 years, and to repeat his claim that the United States “doesn’t celebrate” victory in either World War:
REPORTER: Mr. President, for Americans going to Washington on Saturday —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It’s going to be a great day.
REPORTER: What would you like folks to take away from that day? What would hope that they would remember? And also, Mr. President, and —
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: How strong our military is, we have the strongest military in the world.
You know, it’s very interesting. Three weeks ago, it was the end of world — uh anniversary, end of World War II. And I called France and Macron — a good man.
I said, “What are you doing?”
He goes, “We’re celebrating World War II, our victory.”
I said “Your victory, your victory. Tell me about that.”
And then I called somebody else and I happened to speak to President Putin at the time. Now, in all fairness to him, he lost 51 million people, and he did fight.
Russia fought, sort of interesting, isn’t it? He fought with us at World War II and everybody hates him.
And Germany and Japan, they’re fine, you know. Someday somebody will explain that. But I like Germany and Japan, too.
But Putin is a little confused by that. You know, he said, we lost 51 million people, and we were your ally. And now everybody hates Russia, and they love Germany and Japan.”
I said, “Let’s explain that sometime, okay?”
But it’s a strange world.
But I will say this. Look, I want them to go away saying how great our country and how great our military is.
And I was making all these calls for some reason. I spoke to like four different places. “Sir, are you celebrating?”
And I said, you know, we won World War II and World War I, right? We won them. And yet we’re the only country that doesn’t celebrate. Everybody’s celebrating except us. And I said we should celebrate too.
Watch above via The White House.
