The Cabinet of President Donald Trump broke out in spontaneous applause on Thursday afternoon when he signed a proclamation honoring Christopher Columbus for Columbus Day on Monday.
"Today we have your Columbus Day proclamation for Monday, which we're signing a bit early," White House staff secretary Will Scharf told Trump before the customary monthly Cabinet meeting.
"Columbus, obviously, discovered the new world in 1492. He was a great Italian explorer. He sailed his three ships, the Nina, the Pinto and Santa Maria, across the Atlantic Ocean, and landed in what's today the Caribbean. And this is a particularly important holiday for Italian Americans who celebrate the legacy of Christopher Columbus, and the innovation and explorer zeal that he represented," he continued.
"In other words, we're calling it Columbus Day," Trump quipped as the Cabinet applauded.
"We're back, Italians," he went on, as the applause continued. Trump himself is not Italian; he is German and Scottish.
Later, Trump claimed that it was the press applauding when he made the remarks, but that seems unlikely.
Columbus Day has become something of a flashpoint between conservatives and liberals, with liberals choosing to call the day "Indigenous People's Day" because of a belief that Columbus contributed to "genocide" of Native Americans.
Given that the press is notoriously liberal, it doesn't seem like they would clap for Columbus unless most of them are Italian.
The day has only been a federal holiday since 1971, although Italian-Americans celebrated it on their own before that.
Trump also signed a proclamation honoring Leif Erikson as the first explorer to set foot on North American soil on October 9.
