Donald Trump’s Memorial Day Message Was Very Different to Joe Biden’s

Both the current and the former president have released messages on social media to commemorate Memorial Day, each marked by clear differences—and not just the use of the caps lock key.

While Joe Biden chose to focus on those who had given their lives defending the U.S. and its allies, Trump opted to broaden those he was honoring to include those “STOPPING THE THREAT OF THE TERRORISTS, MISFITS AND LUNATIC THUGS,” and make a forward-looking political statement.

It comes as the two appear as front-runners in their parties’ respective fields for the nomination for the 2024 presidential election, having both now declared their candidacy.

According to a May 24 Quinnipiac University poll of 1,819 U.S. adults, conducted between May 18-22, Trump leads the Republican field with 56 percent support among likely voters, compared to 25 percent for his next most popular rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who declared his candidacy on Wednesday. Among those asked were 669 Republican voters.

Meanwhile, in a May 25 survey by SSRS, conducted between May 17-20 on behalf of CNN, 60 percent of 432 likely Democrat voters supported the incumbent president in his primary bid for a second consecutive term, with the next most supported candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., receiving 20 percent.

If both end up being renominated, it will be the second election Trump and Biden have faced each other—this time, however, with Biden sitting in the Oval Office. According to recent polls, the two remain a few points apart and are frequently trading places as to who is ahead.

Writing on his Truth social media platform, Trump highlighted those “WHO GAVE THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE FOR THE COUNTRY THEY LOVE” but also “THOSE IN [the] LINE OF A VERY DIFFERENT, BUT EQUALLY DANGEROUS FIRE, STOPPING THE THREATS OF THE TERRORISTS, MISFITS AND LUNATIC THUGS WHO ARE WORKING FEVERISHLY FROM WITHIN TO OVERTURN AND DESTROY OUR ONCE GREAT COUNTRY, WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN IN GREATER PERIL THAN IT IS RIGHT NOW.”

The Republican candidate has often portrayed the U.S. as under threat, and a key pillar of his previous campaign centered on the influx of illegal migrants—something Biden has been criticized for recently after a Trump-era policy to limit crossings over the Mexican border expired.

Trump has often used this as a motivation for his claim that America needs to be made great again, and has frequently implied he is the person to do this.

It is unclear who Trump was referring to by “misfits and lunatic thugs,” however it is the language he has frequently used to describe Jack Smith, a Department of Justice prosecutor overseeing the investigation into the alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence, as well as other authorities investigating the former president.

Newsweek approached Trump’s campaign via email for comment on Monday.

The Republican presidential candidate continued: “WE MUST STOP THE COMMUNISTS, MARXISTS AND FASCIST ‘PIGS’ AT EVERY TURN AND, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Biden, meanwhile, focussed on the sacrifice of members of the military and commemorating those who had died. He tweeted: “On Memorial Day, we honor America’s fallen heroes who gave their last full measure of devotion to this nation. We’ll never be able to repay the debt we owe them.”

He added: “But today, we rededicate ourselves to the work for which they gave their lives, and we recommit to supporting the loved ones they left behind.”

Memorial Day was established to honor military personnel who had died while serving in the U.S. armed forces. Originally observed as Decoration Day in 1868, it first served to commemorate the Unionist soldiers who had died as part of the American Civil War.

Since then, it has come to mark those who died for the country in all of the major conflicts the U.S. has participated in, including the two World Wars and the war in Vietnam.