A social media account for U.S. Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, whom President Donald Trump tapped for the position regardless of him having zero navy expertise, posted the fallacious date of the assault on Pearl Harbor twice late final week.
The 2 posts, which have since been deleted, went up Friday after Phelan ― a rich investor, outstanding artwork collector and Trump marketing campaign donor ― visited the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii, saying he was “there to honor the thousands of service members and civilians who died at Pearl Harbor on June 7, 1941.” In one other put up, the account referred to it as “the fateful day of June 7, 1941.”
The Japanese navy’s assault on Pearl Harbor, which President Franklin Roosevelt famously known as “a day that will live in infamy,” occurred on Dec. 7, 1941. Because the impetus for america’ entrance into World Warfare II, it’s remembered as a day that modified the course of world historical past.
Anna Moneymaker through Getty Photos
Newly employed Navy spokesperson Kristina Wong, a former Breitbart Information correspondent, took the blame for the error on Monday.
“I sincerely regret the error. As the daughter of an Air Force veteran it pains me to have made this mistake,” she wrote on social media.
Rep. Chris Deluzio, a Democrat from Pennsylvania and former Navy officer, had simply two phrases when requested to react to the blunder: “Amateur hour.”
Veterans got here out in massive assist for Trump in final 12 months’s election, with about 65% of them saying they voted for him, exit polls confirmed. That got here after he made massive guarantees to service members and veterans throughout his marketing campaign final 12 months, vowing to lift navy pay and root out its “woke” leaders.
However an inside memo obtained by The Related Press final month discovered that Trump’s so-called Division of Authorities Effectivity, helmed by billionaire Elon Musk, plans to chop greater than 80,000 jobs from the Division of Veterans Affairs, which offers well being care and different providers to America’s thousands and thousands of veterans. The cuts will reportedly occur this summer time because the division undergoes a serious reorganization in August.