(PartiallyPolitics.com) – Vivek Ramaswamy, one of the 2024 Republican presidential candidates on Saturday during a campaign event in Iowa referred to Juneteenth as a “useless” holiday.
NBC News was the first to report on Ramaswamy’s remarks. The June 19th holiday is focused on celebrating the country’s progress and the advancements that people can make in their lives through hard work.
Ramaswamy during the event called for many changes to how elections are run. This included limiting the voting to one day and using only paper ballots. He further argued that Election Day should be considered a national holiday rather than celebrating one of the “useless” ones like Juneteenth. He added that it is not possible for everything to be a holiday which is why they should cancel one of the holidays so that Election Day could become a national holiday.
When NBC asked Ramaswamy for more information on these remarks and whether he thought Juneteenth was a useless holiday, the Republican candidate argued that he does think it is useless. However, he does not believe that Veterans Day or Memorial Day was useless. He further argued that the “spirit” of Juneteenth also existed in other holidays including Presidents Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day and that there was no need for redundant holidays. He added that holidays should have a distinct and separate purpose.
Juneteenth became a national holiday in 2021 following the introduction of legislation that passed through Congress with bipartisan support. However, Ramaswamy claimed that the holiday was established under “political duress.”
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