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Trump Participates in a Memorial Day Tribute at Arlington National Cemetery, May 26, 2025

May 26, 2025 · The White House · 0:57:59

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump participated in the Memorial Day observance at Arlington National Cemetery on May 26, 2025, carried in full on the White House channel in an upload published June 2, 2025. The President placed a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and observed a moment of silence before the amphitheater ceremony, where he was accompanied by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, as the official party was announced.

General Caine welcomed the Gold Star families: “Since the founding of our great nation, over 1 million of our sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, brothers and sisters have donned the cloth of our nation and never come home,” he said, adding, in General Patton’s words as he quoted them, that “we should thank God that such men lived.” Closing the ceremony, the President said: “Great poets have written that it’s love which moves the sun and the stars. But here on the sacred soil, right where we are, we’re reminded that it is love which moves the course of history and moves it always toward freedom, always,” and concluded: “May God bless our fallen heroes. May God bless our Gold Star families. And may God bless the United States of America,” as he delivered the tribute.

Why it matters

This observance is the administration’s first Memorial Day ceremony of the term: the wreath-laying, the Joint Chiefs Chairman’s accounting of the fallen, and the President’s freedom-through-sacrifice framing, on the record at the nation’s most hallowed ground.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump Participates in a Memorial Day Tribute at Arlington National Cemetery” (official upload, embedded above; event of May 26, 2025, uploaded June 2, 2025). White House highlight clips of the same observance are recorded as alternates in the index. All characterizations as stated by the President and by General Caine.