The Trump lickspittles on Fox & Friends Weekend were all-in with Trump's latest proclamation to "reclaim" Christopher Columbus' "legacy."
From NPR:
President Trump has signed a proclamation declaring Monday to be Columbus Day, in an effort to "reclaim" what he called the famed explorer's "extraordinary legacy of faith, courage, perseverance, and virtue."
The proclamation comes after Trump said in a social media post in April that, to
bring the holiday "back from the ashes," he would reinstate "Columbus Day under the same rules, dates, and locations, as it has had for all of the many decades before!"In recent years, many people have instead celebrated Indigenous Peoples Day to recognize Native land and acknowledge the contributions Native Americans have made to the country.
Critics and advocates like Kerri Malloy, a professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies at San José State University, have challenged Columbus Day and Columbus' legacy. He says Columbus' arrival to the Americas "triggered a mass genocide of Indigenous people throughout the Western hemisphere," which included deadly diseases being spread among them, their land being stolen and being forced into Christianity.
Thursday's proclamation does not mention Indigenous Peoples Day, but it accuses "left-wing arsonists" of trying to "destroy [Columbus'] name and dishonor his memory."
This Sunday, cohosts Charlie Hurt, Rachel Campos-Duffy and Griff Jenkins used the proclamation as an excuse to heap praise on Trump and New York Mayor Eric Adams, and attack mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, and then proceeded to accuse "Marxists" of being the ones who want to revise history.
HURT: You know, one of the neat things that President Trump is doing as part of this is making historic, federal historic declarations protecting these statues, which I just love that because usually the point of these federal historic declarations is that it protects properties from say developers, or you know, from people who want to knock the building down or alter the building or ruin the historical integrity of the building.
And here for the first time that I can ever think of, you have the federal government using historical designations to protect historical artifacts and treasures from politicians, from the government, from lower governments,and I just love that use of the historic designation.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: I mean, one of the things we're trying to do Griff during the show is is explain, because all historical figures used to be taken in the context of the era in which they lived. Christopher Columbus is a hero. He he is a remarkable figure and and and is not just important to the Italian American population.
The Spaniards funded him, and and you know, there are many countries named... there's Columbia's named after him in South America. His influence is is quite large and we're gonna try and explain some of that throughout the show, and so why you know these Marxists, they just want to undo history rewrite it. It's part of their plan. That's what they do.
HURT: It be like tearing down a statue to Neil Armstrong on the moon in like, you know 5,000 years when we've colonized the moon. It was a giant race. The space race of that time was to get to the new world and Christopher Columbus was the most daring, the most... the one who was the most successful, the best funded one.
And he got here and it was a magnificent. I mean there are very few people alive today who could withstand the journey and the obstacles that they faced and the smarts it took to figure it all out. And idea that we're tearing down statues to him, just mind boggling.
Projection. It's all they've got. You notice the word genocide never comes out of their mouths. Campos-Duffy likes to talk about "context" but as always, remains woefully short on giving any.
