CBS’s Stephen Colbert attacked the Trump Administration on Wednesday night and lectured it for not issuing a Pride Month proclamation.
After wading into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for ordering the renaming of USNS Harvey Milk, Colbert went further with another sneering aside. He said:
This is shortsighted and long-stupidded and unsurprising. Since taking office, the Trump Administration has curtailed protections around LGBTQ rights, banned trans service members from the military, axed hundreds of millions in LGBTQ health funding, and now said they have no plans to issue a Pride Month proclamation this June.
Colbert challenged the administration’s humanity on the matter.
He grieved that no Pride Month proclamation, “means the White House is less inclusive and has less humanity than the Buffalo Bills, who tweeted, ‘Happy Pride. Feeling all the Buffalove!’ Even they know! Even an NFL team knows. Even the Bills know love is love is Buffalove.”
Colbert spoke 24-hours after it was revealed Trump has “no plans” to issue a proclamation recognizing June as Pride Month or dedicate it to any other group or cause.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the decision Tuesday, advising “There are no plans for a proclamation for the month of June,” she said during a media briefing, “but I can tell you this president is very proud to be a president for all Americans, regardless of race, religion or creed.”
The Hill reports Trump declined to issue proclamations recognizing Pride Month throughout his first term, though he briefly acknowledged it on social media in 2019 while touting his administration’s efforts to decriminalize homosexuality worldwide, the first Republican president to do so.
Former President Clinton issued the first presidential proclamation designating June “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month” in 1999. A declaration was issued in 2011 by fellow Democrat, former President Obama, who expanded the scope to include bisexual and transgender people, the Hill report further notes.
