Trump urged West Point’s graduating class to “never forget” the legacy of soldiers before them who fought a bloody war to “extinguish the evil of slavery.
In the past two weeks, Trump has yelled at Defense Secretary Mark Esper for publicly opposing his call to deploy active-duty troops to quell the protests stemming from the killing of Floyd, who was black, by a white Minneapolis police officer.
The events have stirred debate within the military and among retired officers. More than 500 West Point graduates from classes spanning six decades signed an open letter reminding the Class of 2020 of its commitment to avoid partisan politics. “It was on this soil that American patriots held the most vital fortress in our war for independence,” Trump said. He said the U.S. Military Academy “gave us the men and women who fought and won a bloody war to extinguish the evil of slavery within one lifetime of our founding.”
In the speech, Trump leaned into his “America first” brand of foreign policy without uttering the phrase, telling the Army’s newest officers their job is “not to rebuild foreign nations, but to defend and defend strongly our nation from our foreign enemies.” Trump highlighted bigger defense budgets under his watch but falsely said he had destroyed 100% of the Islamic State caliphate in the Middle East; the group still poses a threat to the U.S. He noted he had directed the killing of two terrorist leaders and had created the Space Force.
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