WASHINGTON — Christopher Columbus is back where he belongs: at the heart of American history. On Friday, October 9, 2026, President Donald J. Trump welcomed Italian American leaders to the White House for a Columbus Day Celebration, three days before the national holiday on Monday. “Christopher Columbus changed the future of humanity forever,” the President declared. “And in this administration, we know that Christopher Columbus is to us… a hero. He’s a hero.”
President Trump told the story the radical left wants erased. “In 1492, Christopher Columbus undertook one of the boldest voyages in the history of our planet,” he said, with around 90 men, no weather forecast and no way to call for help. When the crew begged him to turn back, “he pushed onward, discovered the New World, eventually leading to the creation of the most exceptional nation in the history of the world, the United States of America.” Early settlers called the colonies Columbia, the President noted, and the District of Columbia is named in his honor. “American Patriots have always revered and respected this great Italian explorer,” he said. “Perhaps the first ever Italian American.”
The President is not just talking. He put up a beautiful Columbus statue in front of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, renovated the Columbus fountain on Columbus Circle in Washington, and said a Columbus statue presented by Brett Rugo, the craftsman behind the new White House helipad and the ballroom’s marble, will take a special place of honor in the Rose Garden, alongside George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. Then he went further: “Today, I’m officially calling a statue to be returned immediately to where it belongs. And we demand that Christopher Columbus be put back into the heart of Columbus, Ohio.”
He also called out the cities that turned on Columbus. He recalled July 4, 2020, when a mob of radical left lunatics toppled the Columbus statue facing Baltimore’s Little Italy and dumped it in the harbor, only for Italian Americans to recover the pieces the very next morning and raise more than $100,000 to rebuild it. And he blasted New York City officials for a new map of ethnic neighborhoods that lists Little Senegal, Little Guyana, Little Haiti and Little Yemen but not Little Italy: “an unthinkable omission,” he said. “We are going to work on that immediately.”
America’s tenor Christopher Macchio opened the celebration with the National Anthem and closed it with Nessun Dorma, ending on the Italian word vincerò, “I will win,” which he dedicated to the President. Italian Ambassador Marco Peronaci, NIAF President Robert Allegrini, Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano and Andrew Giuliani joined the crowd. The President’s promise to them was simple: “While I’m president of the United States, we’ll always honor and celebrate the immortal legends.” Watch the Official White House video.
