| WTDT is, of course, aware of the ongoing Musk-Trump meltdown. We don't always pick the most salacious or embarrassing or important thing that Trump did in a given day. In today's case, Trump's glib assumption that a German chancellor in 2025 would regard the downfall of the Nazi regime as a bad thing seemed a more authentic example of his unfitness for office than his penchant for middle-school social media drama. We always knew he was happy to spend all day trading insults on Twitter, but showing sympathy over the tragedy of D-Day for the person he assumed was a Nazi sympathizer pushes the envelope even for him. |
What did Donald Trump do today?
He basically tried to apologize for D-Day to the visiting German Chancellor.
Trump is not normally one for sympathy or apologies, but in an Oval Office meeting with Friedrich Merz, the new German chancellor, he did his best to be sensitive when the subject of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany came up, saying that D-Day was "not a pleasant day for you? Not a great day!"
Merz, who was not born until 11 years after Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy, then had to remind Trump that he and the vast majority of Germans do not see the downfall of Hitler's regime as a bad thing.
MERZ: Tomorrow is the D Day anniversary, when the Americans ended a war in Europe TRUMP: That was not a pleasant day for you? This is not a great day MERZ: This was the liberation of my country from Nazi dictatorship
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) June 5, 2025 at 11:15 AM
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This past February, Trump, no stranger to foreign election interference, tried to sway Germans to vote for a far-right party that is a little more ambivalent on the question of Naziism, with a little help from his now-estranged patron Elon Musk. Instead, Merz's center-right CDU party defeated the AfD handily by campaigning against Trump—after which Trump tried to take credit for Merz winning.
Why does this matter?
- This is not the first time Trump has shown extraordinary sensitivity to the feelings of Nazis or their admirers.
- Actually, D-Day was a great day.