You may assume that derision of drag shows would not come up in a commencement address at the prestigious US Military Academy known as West Point—but you would be wrong.
In a nearly hour-long speech by President Donald Trump on Saturday at the academy in New York—his second time speaking there—Trump also trashed diversity, equity, and inclusion policies; took credit for rebuilding the military; and cast himself as an unfairly persecuted victim who beat the odds by becoming president for a second time. Curiously, he made no mention of his Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth (a former Fox News host accused of alcoholism, mismanagement, and sexually inappropriate behavior and rape, which Hegseth’s lawyer has denied) or the recent classified war plans that Hegseth infamously shared in a Signal chat.
There were a few moments of normalcy in the commencement speech: Trump praised the students’ accomplishments, congratulated a few standout students in particular, told them to thank their parents; and urged them to “never give up.” But they were sandwiched in between multiple bizarre comments from Trump, some of which are excerpted below, alongside fact checks:
- “The job of the US Armed Forces is not to host drag shows, to transform foreign cultures, but to spread democracy to everybody around the world at the point of a gun.” (Under the Biden administration, Department of Defense officials said military bases could not host drag shows, though reportedly there is no evidence federal funds were ever used for such events—so it’s unclear what Trump was referring to.)
- “Peace through strength. You know the term, I’ve used it a lot. Because as much as you wanna fight, I’d rather do it without having to fight. I just wanna look at them and have them fold. And that’s happening.” (Russia’s war in Ukraine is still raging more than four months since Trump re-assumed office—its military just killed at least a dozen people in a drone and missile strike in Ukraine on Sunday—despite Trump’s campaign trail claim that he would end the war within 24 hours if reelected.)
- “And we are buying you new airplanes, brand-new, beautiful planes, redesigned planes, brand-new planes, totally stealth planes. I hope they’re stealth. I don’t know, that whole stealth thing, I’m sorta wondering. You mean if we shape a wing this way, they don’t see it, but the other way they see it? I’m not so sure.” (Trump conspicuously did not mention the $400 million luxury jet his administration formally accepted from Qatar this week, despite the objections of Republicans and Democrats who worry that doing so violates the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution and that the plane will lack proper security measures to prevent surveillance.)
- “We couldn’t get anybody to join our military. We couldn’t get anybody to join our police or firefighters. We couldn’t get anybody to join anything. And right now, just less than a year later, we just set a brand new peacetime recruiting record.” (As CBS News reports, Trump’s attempt to take credit for boosting military recruitment is misleading: Data show the military is still struggling to recruit compared to earlier this decade, and experts say recent progress is likely due to reforms introduced under former President Joe Biden.)
- “There will be no more critical race theory or transgender for everybody forced onto our brave men and women in uniform or on anybody else for that matter in this country. And we will not have men playing in women’s sports if that’s okay.” (Where to start with this word salad of right-wing paranoia? As retired Gen. Mark Milley previously told Republican lawmakers, “We do not teach critical race theory. We don’t embrace critical race theory, and I think that’s a spurious conversation.” Less than two percent of the population identifies as transgender, and approximately 0.2 percent of the military is estimated to be trans, based on Defense Department data released earlier this year; still, the Trump administration has moved to ban trans troops from the military—a decision the Supreme Court upheld earlier this month.)
- “I went through a very tough time with some very radicalized sick people, and I say, I was investigated more than the great late Alphonse Capone. Alphonse Capone was a monster, he was a very hardened criminal. I went through more investigations than Alphonse Capone, and now I’m talking to you as president, can you believe this?” (Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts of fraud and former DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith said that he believed Trump would have been convicted for trying to overthrow the 2020 election had he not won reelection last November. A prior fact check from CNN found that Trump’s claim he was indicted more than Capone was false: Trump has been indicted four times, but Capone was indicted six times.)
Too bizarre for a fact check: Trump telling the graduates to avoid marriages to “trophy wives” while delivering a rambling story about real estate developer Bill Levitt.
Trump departed after concluding his rant, breaking with his predecessors’ traditions of shaking all graduates’ hands as they crossed the stage. Trump claimed he had to go “deal with” Russia and China.
A White House spokesperson, Taylor Rogers, provided a different explanation, stating in an email to Mother Jones that Trump “shook hundreds of hands of military leaders and cadets right before his speech and has shaken the hands of thousands of military members during his first and second term.”
Rogers also echoed Trump’s claim that he had pre-scheduled calls with Russia and China, and added: “While the mainstream media fabricates falsehoods, President Trump is planning a magnificent parade as a grand tribute to honor the service and sacrifice of the brave soldiers who have fought, bled, and died to keep us free.”
Rogers made no mention of the fact that the military parade is scheduled to take place on Trump’s birthday, June 14, and could cost an estimated $25 to $45 million, according to an Army spokesperson.
