- Republican Vivek Ramaswamy blasted Juneteenth while speaking in Iowa, calling the holiday "useless."
- Two months ago, he praised the holiday, saying it should be a "celebration of the American dream."
Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on Saturday said that Juneteenth was a "useless" holiday, just months after stating that the holiday should be a "celebration of the American Dream."
While speaking to voters at an event in Iowa, the key early voting caucus state, Ramaswamy told attendees that he would back a national voting holiday by removing another holiday.
"Single day voting, on Election Day. We will make Election Day a holiday. Cancel Juneteenth or one of the other useless ones we made up," he said. "We can't have like every day be a holiday, but we can cancel one of the other ones and make Election Day a holiday, paper ballots, and government-issued voter ID that matches the voter file."
When NBC News pressed Ramaswamy on whether he thought Juneteenth was a "useless" holiday, he replied: "I basically do."
But when asked by the network whether Memorial Day and Veterans Day were "useless" holidays, Ramaswamy took the opposite view.
"I stand with the presumption of time-tested traditions," he said. "I think that if we made a national commemorative holiday for everything that's important that's happened in our history, we'd have no working days left. But I think the spirit of Juneteenth we already channel into other holidays like Martin Luther King Day. Like Presidents' Day."
"We shouldn't have redundant holidays that celebrate overlapping purposes. It should have a distinctive purpose," he continued. "I think — let's be honest. The reason for making it a holiday was under political duress. It was a political hostage situation on the back of the death of George Floyd and I think that should not be how we create holidays."
Ramaswamy's stance also comes two months after he wrote a post on Twitter where he stated that Juneteenth is a "celebration of the American dream."
"We don't just look back and flog ourselves. That's besides the point," he said. "What we celebrate is how far we've come, and as a first-generation American myself, you better believe that I'm proud of it. Happy Juneteenth, everybody."
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers delivered news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas, two months after the end of the Civil War and two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
In June 2021, Congress passed legislation establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday and President Joe Biden promptly signed the bill into law.
Juneteenth is the first national holiday that has been established in the United States since the creation of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday in 1983.
"Great nations don't ignore their most painful moments. They don't ignore those moments of the past. They embrace them. Great nations don't walk away," Biden said at the time during the signing ceremony at the White House.
Many activists and longtime educators, notably 96-year-old Opal Lee, fought for decades for Juneteenth to become a federal holiday.
Former Rep. Will Hurd of Texas — a fellow presidential candidate and one of the highest-profile Black Republicans in the country — blasted Ramaswamy over his remarks, telling NBC News that the contender "hopes to cancel a holiday that celebrates equality and freedom."
"His gimmicks and shtick aren't serious," Hurd added.