Trump suggests Joe Biden will try to take the word Christmas 'out of the vocabulary'
- President Donald Trump on Sunday appeared to suggest that President-elect Joe Biden's new administration would attempt to prevent people from using the word "Christmas."
- "They'll be trying to take that word again out of the vocabulary. We're not going to let them do that," Trump told a rally in Valdosta, Georgia.
- Eric Trump has previously suggested his father was motivated to run for president in office in part because of the false belief that the White House Christmas tree had been renamed "the holiday tree."
President Donald Trump on Sunday suggested that President-elect Joe Biden's new administration would attempt to prevent people from using the word "Christmas."
Speaking with supporters at a rally on Saturday, the president wished the audience a merry Christmas before appearing to suggest that the incoming administration would try to "take that word again out of the vocabulary."
"Let me begin by wishing you all a merry Christmas - remember the word," the president told a rally in Valdosta, Georgia, during which he repeated unsubstantiated claims the election had been rigged against him.
"Remember we started five years ago, and I said, 'You're going to be saying Christmas again.' We say it proudly again. Although they'll be trying to take that word again out of the vocabulary. We're not going to let them do that."
It was a return to a theme that has occupied Trump during his political career.
Trump's son Eric said in a 2016 interview that his father was motivated to run for president in part because of the false belief that the White House Christmas tree had been renamed "the holiday tree."
"He opens up the paper each morning and sees our nation's leaders giving a hundred billion dollars to Iran, or he opens the paper and some new school district has just eliminated the ability for its students to say the pledge of allegiance, or some fire department in some town is ordered by the mayor to no longer fly the American flag on the back of a fire truck," Eric Trump said in 2016, in an interview with James Robinson that was cited by BuzzFeed.
"Or he sees the tree on the White House lawn has been renamed 'holiday tree' instead of 'Christmas tree,'" the younger Trump continued. "I could go on and on for hours. Those are the very things that made my father run, and those are the very things he cares about."
Trump suggested during a 2016 speech that the Democratic leadership under President Barack Obama was "selling Christianity down the tubes" and pledged to make department stores use the words "Merry Christmas" in promotional materials.
Trump has previously wrongly sought to claim credit for reintroducing Americans' right to say merry Christmas.
"Do you remember they were trying to take Christmas out of Christmas? Do you remember? They didn't want to let you say 'merry Christmas,'" he told an audience in 2017, during a speech that was cited by Rolling Stone.
"You'd go around, you'd see department stores that have everything red, snow, beautiful, ribbons, bows. Everything was there, but they wouldn't say 'merry Christmas.'
"They're all saying merry Christmas again, you remember? I went through that during the campaign: 'They're going to say merry Christmas again.' And they are."