President Donald Trump took his sweet time issuing a proclamation honoring Martin Luther King Jr.
Trump, 79, didn’t acknowledge the federal holiday dedicated to the civil rights hero until Monday evening, nearly becoming the first president to skip an MLK Jr. Day proclamation. King received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
“As President, I am steadfastly committed to ensuring that our country will always be guided by the same principles that Dr. King defended throughout his life and to upholding the timeless truth that our rights are not granted by government but endowed by Almighty God,” the proclamation reads.
“To honor his legacy, last year, I proudly ordered the declassification of documents related to his assassination — because more than 50 years after his death, his family and the American people deserved the truth,” Trump went on.
In July, the Justice Department released about 230,000 pages of documents related to the assassination of King in April 1968. The King family initially expressed apprehension that the release would be used to “smear” the hero’s legacy, and later urged the public to view the files with “empathy, restraint, and respect.”
Trump’s proclamation for 2026 highlighted King’s “legendary articulation of an immortal truth: The measure of a person is found not in the color of their skin but in the content of their character”—even as he removed MLK Jr. Day and Juneteenth from the list of free admission days to national parks.
The delayed proclamation this year breaks with the tradition Trump set in his first term, when he declared MLK Jr. Day a federal holiday three days ahead. The White House did not respond to an inquiry on why the proclamation came late.
In 2017, Trump even met with Martin Luther King III at Trump Tower.
“Celebrate Martin Luther King Day and all of the many wonderful things that he stood for. Honor him for being the great man that he was!” he wrote in a social media post at the time.
But Trump certainly didn’t forget about the College Football Playoff National Championship, for which he issued a presidential message on Monday morning.
Trump began his second term by declaring war on diversity, equity, and inclusion, driven by a flurry of executive orders cracking down on DEI policies in the federal government.
Last year on Juneteenth, Trump went on a Truth Social rant about how there are “too many non-working holidays in America.” He did not acknowledge the federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery.
