WASHINGTON — President Trump announced he’s resurrected Christopher Columbus from being canceled and blasted “radical left communists” who tried to destroy the explorer’s legacy.
Trump lauded the famous Italian American’s accomplishments in a ceremony at the White House as he prepares to add a statue of Columbus to the Rose Garden, where it will join statues of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson.
“I resurrected Christopher Columbus,” he announced to great applause from the Italians in the room.
“He’s been rehabbed 100 percent, and he’s been resurrected in the true sense,” he added. “He’s back to where he should be.”
He also praised New York City’s robust Italian American community and warned against those who seek to erase traditions.
“Those who hate our country want to see the Italian American community erased. They don’t want to have an Italian American community because you stand for something that’s incredible,” the president said.
Italian-Americans had been “a very discriminated group,” the president noted, and implied liberals tried to prevent filmmakers from using Italian names for mobsters in their films because “they thought it was discriminatory.”
“They didn’t want you to use the name of Alphonse Capone,” he said. “You weren’t allowed to use Italian names.”
“We love Italian Americans,” he said to great applause. “I love you. That’s why I’m here.”
He also paid tribute to several famous Italian Americans, including opera singer Christopher Macchio, who sang at the event, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose son Andrew attended the Columbus Day celebration in his absence.
Columbus made landfall in what is now the Bahamas in 1492, kicking off a wave of European exploration of the Americas.
But his legacy was questioned during a reexamination of that colonial era where Europeans committed violence against Native Americans.
In 2021, President Joe Biden formally proclaimed Indigenous Peoples Day as the federal holiday to replace Columbus Day. Trump brought Columbus Day back to the calendar.
The president blasted “radical left communists” who wanted to tarnish the explorer’s accomplishments.
He also singled out Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, claiming he wanted to eliminate the holiday and, in doing so, trying to erase American history and heritage.
“He wants to abolish Columbus,” the president said. “We have people — these lunatics that are running. They’re all against Christopher Columbus.”
Columbus is a “hero,” Trump noted.
The president already has one statue of Columbus on the complex. It’s in front of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House and is a replica of a statue that protesters toppled and dumped into Baltimore’s harbor during racial justice protests in 2020. Fragments of the statue were pulled from the harbor and incorporated into the one on the White House grounds.
On Friday, Trump unveiled a second statue of Columbus crafted by the designer of the White House heliport. It depicts the explorer surrounded by four female figures symbolizing Europe, America, Asia, and Africa. That one will go right outside the Oval Office in the Rose Garden.
