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News24
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- News24
Anger as Kanye West to perform in Slovakia after Hitler song
US rapper Kanye West, who released a song in May glorifying Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, will perform at a rap festival in Bratislava in July, the organisers said on Monday. Calling West's appearance a 'global sensation', the organisers said it was his only confirmed live performance in Europe this year. West, the winner of 24 Grammys over the course of his career, has become notorious in recent years for his erratic behaviour and increasingly anti-Semitic and hate-filled rhetoric. The 48-year-old, who has legally changed his name to Ye, released 'Heil Hitler' on 8 May, the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. 'Hip-hop visionary, cultural icon and controversial genius YE will perform 20 July 2025 exclusively at the Rubicon Festival in Bratislava,' the organisers said on the event's website. More than 3 000 people have signed a petition against West's performance in the Slovak capital. The rapper - a vocal supporter of US President Donald Trump - is 'repeatedly and openly adhering to symbols and ideology connected with the darkest period of modern global history', two groups behind the petition said. 'Kanye West's concert in our city and our country is an insult to historic memory, a glorification of wartime violence and debasement of all victims of the Nazi regime,' the petition reads. In the 'Heil Hitler' clip, dozens of Black men - wearing animal pelts and masks, and standing in a block formation - chant the title of the song, as West raps about being misunderstood and about his custody battle with ex-wife Kim Kardashian. The song ends with an extract of a speech by the Nazi dictator. West has also publicly endorsed fellow rapper and music mogul Sean Combs, who is on trial for alleged sex trafficking and racketeering. The line-up of the Rubicon festival, scheduled for 18-20 July, also includes American rappers Ken Carson, Offset and Sheck Wes.
The Guardian
22-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trump is terrified of Black culture. But not for the reasons you think
By the time Jesse Owens bowed his head from the highest podium tier to be crowned with his fourth Olympic wreath in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Europe's premiers knew they had a problem. In front of a record-setting crowd at games that should have been a lavish display of Aryan propaganda, Owens's unmatched athleticism on the track humiliated the host Nazi regime and smashed one of the vital ideological pillars upon which European empires annexed the world into their racial order. Since the inception of race-based slavery and settler-colonialism in the 15th century, the novel idea that human beings could be stratified into distinct 'races,' with superiority defaulting to white Europeans, was bolstered by the claim that white racial supremacy was the rational outcome of the 'natural' biophysical, intellectual and aesthetic ascendancy of white people, and thus of whiteness itself. Adolf Hitler watched Owens, the five-time world record holder and grandson of enslaved people, triumph in his first event from a lavishly decorated imperial box, and abruptly exited the arena thereafter rather than witness Aryan athletes stumble to place second. In his conspicuous departure, a reluctant admission heard around the world had been made. A pillar was smashed. European physical superiority had been proven an undeniable fallacy and, more insultingly, Black dominance on the track was now a quantifiable fact. The ideological stakes of white supremacy – that whites were the smarter race, the sole ones capable of higher thought, that white people were the most physically beautiful, and also that the cultural products of whiteness were the most artistically valuable to advanced civilization – had suffered a powerful blow and shifted on its heels. In the 1930s, Hitler and his ministers embarked on a 'synchronization' campaign to bring fine arts, theatre, literature, architecture and media in line with Nazi propaganda – a move that was not unique to the Third Reich. All European colonizers expanded their empires via the theft and destruction of the cultures they subjugated, coupled with the intellectual propagandization of their own cultural superiority. Since the world wars, the march of modernity and the inescapability of western cultural imperialism continue to be hedged on that perfectly rigged game in which the products of whiteness are extolled as the most beautiful and significant because white intellectual arbiters tell us that they are. But in fewer than 40 years following the Berlin games, western empires were swiftly losing their hold on the cultures and minds under their rule. By the late 1960s, a Black freedom struggle in the US ignited a movement for African American identity, inspired by and linked to independence movements throughout the African continent and diaspora. The Black arts movement (BAM), a concerted effort to transform the artistic and cultural vanguard across Black politics, scholarship and organizations in the US, resulted in a creative explosion of cultural production centered on Black life and experience. BAM birthed a new Black consciousness – one sourced from self-determination and aimed squarely at thwarting claims of white cultural supremacy. It brought to the fore a generation of young Black writers, poets, artists, dancers and thespians who asked why any white-controlled institution was qualified to appraise art created for and by Black people. When Owens died in 1980 at just 66 years old, having spent his post-Olympiad life subjected to the repeated humiliations of Jim Crow, he and other 20th-century Black athletes had tapped the glass jaw in the myth white superiority and opened the floodgates for BAM's blitzkrieg against white cultural and intellectual hegemony. The movement was radically forged shifting away from conceding any white cultural supremacy, including a disinterest in white endorsement and patronage. BAM activists built their own institutions including bookstores, publishing houses, theatres, galleries, museums, cultural centers and scholarly journals and digests. Organizers started Black studies programs, conferences and curricula across the country. The movement understood that Black cultural production required Black intellectual production to secure its value and meaning. The ideological through-line from the overt white supremacy of the past to today is crystal clear. BAM's legacy can be found in the threat that Black culture and cultural institutions pose to new versions of old authoritarianism. In recent months, the Trump administration has advanced its culture wars to defund, demolish and demote the institutionalization of Black arts and culture, notably through very public takeovers of the Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, and Smithsonian Institution, along with several high-profile firings of Black experts and leadership in these and many other institutions reliant on federal funding. With book bans and the seizing of administrative, fiscal and curricular control of elite universities, Donald Trump has declared open war on all knowledge and expression that his administration deems anti-white. Much of the public discourse has summed up Trump's demolition efforts as an assault on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) campaigns, and much of that discourse gets it wrong. In patronizing Black culture as merely worthy of representation in white spaces, we misconstrue the endgame of Trump's white supremacist politics. Trump knows that culture in the hands of subjugated peoples is a political weapon that he can't best. His lavish attempts at conjuring a culture via pageantry seem pathetic because they are. In a culture war fair fight, where Black people hold power in institutions, knowledge and politics, he will lose. Hitler wasn't affronted because Owens was included or represented in the games. The Führer stormed out infuriated after witnessing a Black man win. Even more important than its content, BAM's great victory was in putting forth an uncomfortable truth for the white mainstream: the cultural contributions of Black people laid bare the sheer fallacy of western cultural eminence. BAM was able to back up that claim with an organized Black scholarly and institutional thrust, thus exposing how claims of white cultural dominance were only buttressed by white political power. A look back at what BAM gained in turning Black cultural and scholarly institutions into wellsprings for Black political action explains why the Trump administration sees Black culture as an enemy. It also reveals what Americans got wrong by emphasizing the soft politics of representation and inclusion while shortchanging the capability of Black artistry to dethrone the great myth of white superiority. At the height of one of the most violent eras of the 20th century, BAM organizers set their sights on Black liberation, not conciliation. As a result, BAM's blueprint for Black power reoriented institutions and organizations and persists half a century later. Our stakes today are just as high, but in reducing Black culture into diversity and inclusion efforts we're playing directly into a game where Trump can expunge these politically inconsequential gains as soon as they are made. As the historian Gerald Horne has argued, African Americans have always been bilked of economic and political power in this country, but their cultural capital – particularly their visibility and influence – has long been outsized. For a demographic that consistently comprises only about 13% of the US population, Black entertainers, artists, musicians and athletes rank disproportionately among the most known and top performing figures in their fields. Black art forms such as the blues, jazz and hip-hop have done much of the heavy lifting of exporting 'Americanness' as a popular culture product around the world. By the late 1960s, in the wake of the assassination of Malcolm X, an emerging generation of young Black artists, poets, writers, dancers and thespians began asking what they should be getting for that cultural influence, if that capital could be transformed into political action, and if the power of their cultural production could be harnessed exclusively on their terms. The Black arts movement was an artists' call to arms, born directly out of the ideological shift towards Black nationalism that was triumphed by Malcolm X. He insisted that Black people were a nation within a nation, and that Blackness was a cultural nationality unto itself. Its identity and aesthetic was oriented in the African diaspora, not in assimilation into white America. After Malcolm X's death, Larry Neal, a key theorist of the movement, wrote, 'the struggle for black self-determination had entered a more serious, more profound stage' that necessitated the formation of a Black cultural thrust, the building of autonomous Black institutions, and the need for a Black theory of social change. BAM activists saw themselves as the cultural branch of the larger Black power movement, where art would enable Black people to imagine themselves beyond the dictates of white racism, and graft the ideals that could envision a world in which Black people have collective control of their political and economic lives. In line with Malcolm's 1962 missive at a Los Angeles church, in which he asked Black people, 'who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your head to the soles of your feet? Who taught you to hate the race that you belong to?', BAM forged a radical new expression of the Black aesthetic, one that both ignited sociocultural revolution and deposed the white gaze by recasting beauty itself as Blackness. 'Black is beautiful,' a refrain for the Black power generation, became more than a slogan that defined the time. It was a declaration of cultural independence and a battle cry in the fight for a sea change in Black identity. BAM converted Black cultural capital into Black political capital. Its key figures, who made up an extensive list of artists, activists and organizers – Amiri Baraka, Gwendolyn Brooks, Haki Madhubuti, Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Larry Neal, James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Audre Lorde, Maya Angelou, Gil Scott-Heron, Hoyt Fuller, Nathan Hare and Dudley Randall – understood that the politics of art was co-constituted with the art of politics. The movement swiftly enveloped better-known mainstream Black artists, including many who quietly funded causes such as the Black Panther party legal defense fund and several fledgling Black arts institutions. Artists such as John Coltrane, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, Thelonious Monk and Harry Belafonte used their sounds, images and performances to amplify Black consciousness and liberation into the 1970s and beyond. BAM's artists radicalized a Black aesthetic into a political ideology and understood, as literary theorist Terry Eagleton explains, 'the aesthetic, one might argue, is […] the very paradigm of the ideological. Ideology and style are the same thing.' BAM was not a civil rights campaign, however, and its endgame was neither style and visibility nor representation and inclusion. What BAM artist-activists understood and made into a political strategy was the idea that art itself, as a product and form of Black expression, was not solely capable of liberating Black people. It needed to be safe-housed and incubated within Black communities by independent Black institutions. Thus even as BAM composed the cultural wing of Black power, it further deployed into subsidiaries across an institutional and scholarly landscape. BAM's organizational grid included numerous independent Black theatre companies, Black bookstores, independent Black K-12 schools, scholarly journals such as the Black Scholar, publishers including Third World Press, and digests such as Black World that became premier venues for the intellectual discourses that anchored Black art's political gravity and meanings. The art and cultural production of the movement offered a vision for revolution, but it was BAM's massive footprint across Black arts institutions and scholarship that converted that artistic vision to a currency of real social change for everyday Black communities, often accomplished by challenging the divide between 'fine' arts institutions and those serving the Black masses. Louis Chude-Sokei, the longtime editor of the Black Scholar, said how journal founders resisted the familiar elitism of academic scholarship. 'Their mission was to 'unite the academy and the street,' ... not just in terms of genre, language and style, but also in terms of the kind of people it affirmed as 'scholars' and 'intellectuals.'' In a survey by the Kerner Commission – Lyndon Johnson's national advisory board charged with investigating the underlying causes for Black urban social unrest and rebellion in the late 1960s – nearly 80% of Black respondents agreed with the statement 'all negroes should study African history and language.' Decades of toil, political gains and intensive planning and research by Black curators, historians and museum professionals resulted in the institutionalization of that survey into the world's largest museum complex. The Smithsonian's 19th installation, the massively popular National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), opened just more than a month before Trump's 2016 election. It enshrines Black material culture as history by jettisoning an often repeated myth about America, in which the nation's supposed exceptionalism is a result of harmonious multiculturalism, where various ethnic groups have voluntarily contributed to an 'American tapestry.' Instead, the 'Black Smithsonian,' as it has been nicknamed by loyal supporters, forges upon a road BAM paved and challenges one to question the US's whitewashed history. The result is a meticulously accurate inverting of the American narrative into one told through African descended experience, in which the US's economic, political and social systems were established for and by the purpose of using stolen land to exploit the labor of stolen people. This is not a Disneyfied tale of 'diversity' that gestures towards Black offerings into the melting pot mythos of a 'nation of immigrants'. NMAAHC's masterful curatorial team, under the helm of the Smithsonian secretary Lonnie G Bunch, stayed true to much of BAM's core legacy by exhibiting Black culture with a mind for raising Black consciousness. Visitors leave the museum not only with amazement and reverence for Black cultural preservation, resistance and perseverance, but also with reliable and verified information, which, studies have shown, the public trusts more when coming from museums than any other source. Bucking the propagandistic synchronicity campaign of the Trump realm, however, has brought NMAAHC directly into the administration's crosshairs. In recent months the NMAAHC has been a battle ground for Trump's authoritarian government, in which an executive order entitled 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,' accuses the museum of advancing an 'improper' and 'divisive, race-centered' ideology by 'promoting', among many expert-backed facts, 'the view that race is not a biological reality' – the very biological pseudoscience that was once a pillar of Aryan propaganda and bolstered European imperialism's tenet of white biophysical superiority. The executive order was not an empty threat and targets other federally backed institutions such as the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery (NPG), which recently appointed a Black woman as the director of curatorial affairs and featured an exhibition on the Black Figure, and the National Park System's Independence national historical park, which the order accused of 'interrogating institutional racism' in its trainings. Just a week ago, Kim Sajet, NPG's director, stepped down after Trump's recent call for her termination. Trump's synchronization campaign has further rolled into takeover efforts for federally backed institutions not named in the order, such as the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Trump swiftly removed the center's longtime director, Deborah Rutter, and replaced board members with his loyalists, who soon after elected him chair. At the Kennedy Center's opening night on 11 June, Trump was met by jeers and expletives from longtime patrons, with shouts of 'rapist!' and 'felon!' while admirers shouted up 'we love you!' to his box seats. Terminations of the personnel of these institutions are just one part of Trump's far more entrenched war to defund and eradicate the institutional infrastructure of arts and culture, including recent drastic cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, among many other public-private foundations. Marc Bamuthi Joseph, the Kennedy Center's recently fired vice-president and social impact director, as well as a poet, dancer and playwright, publicly indicted Trump's efforts to 'take down everything Black'. Trump's messaging has consistently referred to this propaganda campaign for state control of culture as an 'anti-DEI effort' – euphemistic phrasing that has been adopted uncritically by many media outlets and the political left. Adopting the terminology is an acceptance of the propaganda itself, in which Americans miss the true political thrust of culture to incite social change. We omit the lessons we should all be carrying from the Black arts movement that taught us both our real target and how to use culture as our weapon against it. The soft-bellied politics of 'diversity,' 'inclusion' and 'representation' are not a challenge to the remaining pillars of white supremacy, but rather a concession to it. For example, there are many who argue that the US's elite 'fine' arts institutions have championed the cause to diversify and address their histories of exclusion with an explosion of post-2020 Black hires into their leadership. 'These hires are largely ornamental,' said Chaédria LaBouvier, the Guggenheim Museum's first Black curator and first Black author of its catalogue, 'as evidenced by the many layoffs, firings and eliminations of these positions since they were instituted.' BAM activists were insistent that Black cultural expression came with a political ideology and warned against attempts by powerful white patrons to defang Black art of its meanings for Black people. Even in BAM's day, 'diversity' efforts were deployed as tools to dismantle Black radical politics. The Kerner Commission, angst-ridden about the possibilities of continued Black protest, suggested that Black people be assimilated into capitalism as a means to quell the Black freedom struggle. Nixon took up the task with diversity programs for Black business owners who he hoped would subdue Black resistance organizing in American cities. BAM insisted that Black art must be canonized by Black intellectuals. While the fine arts world has witnessed recent record-setting auction prices for pieces by Black artists, LaBouvier notes that these works are generally treated as commodities, with appraisals subjected to the caprice of market fluctuation, whereas the value of works by many white artists are stabilized by the canonizing research of overwhelmingly white art historians. Diversity, inclusion and representation reinforce a belief that the cultural contributions of oppressed peoples hold value only in the grasp and domain of their oppressors. As Rafael Walker, an assistant professor at Baruch College who specialized in American and African American literature, noted, 'when you're talking about representation, presentation is in the word. You're talking about presenting to someone, to another. Present to whom? The Black arts movement did not give a damn about presenting Black culture for anyone else's approval.' In his efforts to demolish and disappear Black culture and the institutions that support it, Trump has made a loud admission: if he truly believed that Black culture were inferior, he would be leaving it on display and intact. Its mere existence would prove white supremacy. Trump knows the real threat of Black culture that has been shortchanged in the public DEI discourse, as his administration is a metaphor in itself for mythology of white supremacy: extensively kleptocratic, grossly inept and held in power by depraved and ruthless violence. As Haki Madhubuti, a BAM founding father, explains of the movement's endgame: 'The mission is how do we become a whole people, and how do we begin to essentially tell our narrative, while at the same time move toward a level of success in this country and in the world? And we can do that. I know we can do that.' Trump's great fear is knowing we can, too. Spot illustrations by Tina Tona
The National
18-06-2025
- Politics
- The National
Exploring the colourful side of Warsaw: Red-brick resilience and neon nightlife
Landing the day previous, I set out to explore Warsaw on June 4. The date marks 36 years since the first elections that led to the dissolution of the communist government in Poland. People may have breathed a sigh of relief, but the cities and society at large would need rebuilding – something Warsaw has done time and time again, notably during both world wars. As much as 85 per cent of the capital was flattened by the Nazi regime as they occupied the territory in 1939 during the Second World War; a deliberate message to the world. Then, civilians – particularly the previously thriving Jewish community – were terrorised and brutally murdered in their hundreds of thousands. It's this sordid past that often marks Warsaw as a destination for dark tourism, and this isn't something the people of modern-day Poland shy away from. 'We have wounds,' my guide, Piotr, tells me as we walk around the Old Town. 'Maybe because of these wounds, we are not like Prague or Florence. But on the other hand, we have a story to tell.' This is undeniable as you explore the city. Visit the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews, walk the line where the walls of the Jewish ghetto once stood, or leave the city borders to pay your respects at one of the camps where unspeakable tragedy occurred. Look up as you wander the streets, and you'll spot walls tarnished by bullet holes, on display as a reminder of the people's resistance. 'We are proud of our scars,' Piotr adds. While it's important not to shy away, dark moments in its past shouldn't overshadow the Warsaw of today. From red-brick buildings to neon lights, here's what the colourful side of the city has to offer. Green: Tree-lined streets and thriving veggie dining scene Leaving the UAE in the wake of the hottest May on record, I eagerly pencil in a spring visit to Lazienki Park. Walking through the expansive grounds, which span about 76 hectares, I stumble upon a statue of Poland's international treasure, Frederic Chopin, the composer and virtuoso pianist. It's no twist of fate, however, as it's hard to go too far in his birth town without spotting an homage to him. But this spot is extra-special, as for 66 years, free summer concerts have been held around Chopin's statue in the park every Sunday, keeping his legacy alive. Nature isn't confined to small squares and the odd city park, either. Linden and maple trees line the streets, while the University of Warsaw Library's rooftop garden is an ideal spot to contemplate while surrounded by greenery. Kampinos National Park, on the north-western outskirts of the city, is worth a visit too. Verdant in more ways than one, Warsaw also has more vegan eateries per capita than any other city in Europe. During my visit, I visit vegan bakery Eter for gorgeous sticky buns and matcha, and head to a lovely lunch of artichoke flatbread and tofu stir-fry at the vegetarian Secret Life Cafe. It's not just the specialised eateries, either; at Nobu, the team pull together a seven-course degustation menu for both vegetarians and vegans. Poland's flag isn't hard to spot in the streets of Warsaw, its red and white stripes waving proudly. The colours have long been associated with national pride; the red represents courage, and it's a sentiment you can practically inhale when navigating the city. Sometimes, it is jubilantly obvious, like the endless pride over Chopin. Even the airport we arrive in from Abu Dhabi shares its moniker with the musician. At other times, this pride and persistence are more subtle. Taking a pew in Holy Cross Church, home to the relic of Chopin's heart (supposedly his dying wish to his sister as he found his fame in foreign lands), you need only glance at the alter to spot the step that sticks outs in its beautifully rebuilt surroundings; a stone survivor of the church's destruction from a Nazi bulldozer. There is no attempt at camouflage. It's a theme throughout Warsaw's Old Town, its entirety being a Unesco Heritage site. Despite being almost completely destroyed during the Second World War, it was slowly rebuilt in the years after. Working around and preserving any trace of the city that still stood, reconstruction efforts went into not only restoring its prewar beauty brick by brick, but also mirroring the paintwork of Italian landscape artist Bernardo Bellotto, who likewise fell in love with the city when he visited in 1767. Neon: Electric nightlife and warehouse glow-ups We're not short of malls in the UAE, but that won't stop me from a shopping excursion when on my travels. I head to Elektrownia Powisle, located in the lively Powisle neighbourhood. It's not just the shops that have allure; in a past life, the building served as a power plant. Initially opened in 1904, the plant stood firm through the city's trials and tribulations of the 20th century, finally shutting shop in 2001. Preserving its past, it still possesses a neon glow and retains much of its original structure, including the bullet wounds. Although I can't resist the beauty hall, it's worth visiting without spending even a groschen. Just wander the food court for a crash course in nailing neon menu art. Elektrownia Powisle is one of many following this path; Hala Koszyki is a basket factory that became a food court; Fabryka Norblina was a metalwork factory and now stands as a culture and entertainment hub, as well as office and retail space. And if you're a moth to a neon light, weave in a visit to the Neon Museum, as it is home to signs that lit up the country during the Cold War. It will reopen at a new location, in the Palace of Culture and Science, in July. From the seasonal Night Market nestled in the former Central Railway Station to the bars I peek into as I walk the city, the fun aesthetic still reigns supreme. Gold: Nobel gongs and culture champions 'We are the birthplace of heroes,' Piotr tells me as we reach the New Town. 'But our heroes tend to live and die out of Poland,' he adds. Fresh from the Royal Route and Old Town, which could easily be renamed Chopin's Way, he delivers the line as we stand outside the birthplace of the legendary scientist Marie Curie. Curie's early years were spent in Poland before moving to Paris for further study. Through her scientific discoveries and research into radioactivity, which revolutionised modern medicine, she made a lasting mark on history. She became not only the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, but also the only person to have won prizes in two scientific fields: chemistry and physics. Now, the 18th-century abode where she was born stands as the Maria Sklodowska-Curie Museum. It's not the only nod to Nobel winners in the city. In Lazienki Park stands a statue of Henryk Sienkiewicz. Even before I'm close enough to inspect, I can detect it's an ode to a writer, the pensive stance and cast-away sheets at his feet giving him away. The gong-winning author's historical novels ran as newspaper instalments throughout the late 1880s. Sienkiewicz travelled plenty, lived for many years in the US, and eventually died in Switzerland. Maybe Piotr has a point. However, a quick Google search tells me that Poland's most recent Nobel laureate, Olga Tokarczuk, who studied at the University of Warsaw and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2018, still resides in Walbrzych. Such commemorations are just another clue into how much Warsaw values its legacy and heritage. Take the Palace of Culture and Science itself. Now home to museums, cinemas, theatres and likewise cultural institutes, it was built under Soviet rule to imitate the palaces of Russia, a so-called 'gift' that was known as Stalin's palace. When added to the registry of cultural heritage in Poland in 2007, controversy arose, with some calling it a symbol of oppression that ought to be torn down. Yet, championing culture without eradicating dark history triumphed once again. Perhaps it's simply time for the central European country to truly reclaim its narrative. Home to temporary shows now, the Polish History Museum – a stunning building boasting a grey marble cut-stone facade – is set to house a permanent exhibition by 2026. 'Every few years, you can find some new things about this city,' Piotr explains. 'It's a changing place, you know. Warsaw has not finished its reconstruction.' Although there is room for growth, people like Piotr have already struck gold with life in this city, he says. 'I'm travelling a lot. I'm going to London, Paris, Berlin and so on. Yet still, I do like being here.'
Yahoo
08-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
"The President Of The United States Is A F—king Moron": People Are Slamming Trump For Making A "Joke" About The Anniversary Of D-Day In Front Of The German Chancellor
Today is the 81st anniversary of D-Day. For those who don't know, on June 6, 1944, the Allied powers (including the United States) stormed the beaches of Normandy, France, leading to the beginning of the liberation of Germany and the rest of Europe from the Nazi regime. Well, Germany's Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, recently met with President Donald Trump at the White House, and their discussion about the anniversary of D-Day has gone viral for being yet another embarrassing moment for Trump on the world stage. In a now-viral clip seen by over 8 million people, Donald Trump made a "joke" about D-Day, telling the German Chancellor that it was "not a pleasant day for you." CNN / Twitter: @BulwarkOnline "May I remind you that we are having June 6 tomorrow. This is D-Day anniversary. When the Americans once ended the war in Europe," Chancellor Merz said. Related: "We Don't Import Food": 31 Americans Who Are Just So, So Confused About Tariffs And US Trade "That was not a pleasant day for you. This was not a great day," Trump repeated, pointing towards the Chancellor while smiling and laughing. "No, it was not a pleasant — well, in the long run Mr. President, this was the liberation of my country from Nazi dictatorship," the Chancellor said, seriously. Related: AOC's Viral Response About A Potential Presidential Run Has Everyone Watching, And I'm Honestly Living For It "Sure. That's true," Trump responded. Following Trump's remarks, many people took to social media to criticize his callousness and the fact that the sitting president seemingly did not understand the historical significance of D-Day. "It's almost like he didn't know this," one user wrote in response to the clip. "Trump remains an embarrassment on the world stage," one person wrote. "When a U.S. president can't recognize the moral clarity of D-Day, liberating the world from fascism, it's not just ignorance. It's historical amnesia wrapped in his ego," another person wrote. "That's a fucking crazy thing to say to the German chancellor." And this person summed up the overall consensus, "The President of the United States is a fking moron." What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below. Also in In the News: People Can't Believe This "Disgusting" Donald Trump Jr. Post About Joe Biden's Cancer Diagnosis Is Real Also in In the News: Republicans Are Calling Tim Walz "Tampon Tim," And The Backlash From Women Is Too Good Not To Share Also in In the News: JD Vance Shared The Most Bizarre Tweet Of Him Serving "Food" As Donald Trump's Housewife
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
"The President Of The United States Is A F—king Moron": People Are Slamming Trump For Making A "Joke" About The Anniversary Of D-Day In Front Of The German Chancellor
Today is the 81st anniversary of D-Day. For those who don't know, on June 6, 1944, the Allied powers (including the United States) stormed the beaches of Normandy, France, leading to the beginning of the liberation of Germany and the rest of Europe from the Nazi regime. Well, Germany's Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, recently met with President Donald Trump at the White House, and their discussion about the anniversary of D-Day has gone viral for being yet another embarrassing moment for Trump on the world stage. In a now-viral clip seen by over 8 million people, Donald Trump made a "joke" about D-Day, telling the German Chancellor that it was "not a pleasant day for you." German Chancellor: "May I remind you that we are having June 6 tomorrow. This is the D-Day anniversary."Trump: "Not a pleasant day for you. That was not a great day."German Chancellor: "This was the liberation of my country from Nazi dictatorship." — The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) June 5, 2025 CNN / Twitter: @BulwarkOnline "May I remind you that we are having June 6 tomorrow. This is D-Day anniversary. When the Americans once ended the war in Europe," Chancellor Merz said. Related: "We Don't Import Food": 31 Americans Who Are Just So, So Confused About Tariffs And US Trade "That was not a pleasant day for you. This was not a great day," Trump repeated, pointing towards the Chancellor while smiling and laughing. "No, it was not a pleasant — well, in the long run Mr. President, this was the liberation of my country from Nazi dictatorship," the Chancellor said, seriously. Related: AOC's Viral Response About A Potential Presidential Run Has Everyone Watching, And I'm Honestly Living For It "Sure. That's true," Trump responded. Following Trump's remarks, many people took to social media to criticize his callousness and the fact that the sitting president seemingly did not understand the historical significance of D-Day. "It's almost like he didn't know this," one user wrote in response to the clip. "Trump remains an embarrassment on the world stage," one person wrote. "When a U.S. president can't recognize the moral clarity of D-Day, liberating the world from fascism, it's not just ignorance. It's historical amnesia wrapped in his ego," another person wrote. "That's a fucking crazy thing to say to the German chancellor." And this person summed up the overall consensus, "The President of the United States is a fking moron." What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below. Also in In the News: People Can't Believe This "Disgusting" Donald Trump Jr. Post About Joe Biden's Cancer Diagnosis Is Real Also in In the News: Republicans Are Calling Tim Walz "Tampon Tim," And The Backlash From Women Is Too Good Not To Share Also in In the News: JD Vance Shared The Most Bizarre Tweet Of Him Serving "Food" As Donald Trump's Housewife
