Donald Trump hails West Point cadets and takes credit for US military might
'And you will become officers of the greatest and most powerful army the world has ever known.
'And I know, because I rebuilt that army, and I rebuilt the military.
Graduating cadet Chris Verdugo, left, is pictured on screen alongside President Donald Trump (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
'And we rebuilt it like nobody has ever rebuilt it before in my first term.'
Wearing a red Make America Great Again hat, the Republican president told the 1,002 graduating cadets that 'you came from excellence, you came for duty'.
He said: 'We're getting rid of distractions and we're focusing our military on its core mission: crushing America's adversaries, killing America's enemies and defending our great American flag like it has never been defended before.'
He later said that 'the job of the US armed forces is not to host drag shows or transform foreign cultures', a reference to drag shows on military bases that former president Joe Biden's administration halted after Republican criticism.
Mr Trump said the cadets were graduating at a 'defining moment' in the army's history, as he criticised past political leaders for leading soldiers into 'nation-building crusades to nations that wanted nothing to do with us'.
Several points during his address at the football stadium on the military academy's campus were indistinguishable from a political speech.
Donald Trump arrives to deliver the commencement speech (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)
Mr Trump claimed that when he left the White House in 2021, 'we had no wars, we had no problems, we had nothing but success, we had the most incredible economy'.
He noted that he won all seven swing states and 2,750 districts in the November election, arguing that those results gave him a 'great mandate' and 'it gives us the right to do what we want to do'.
At one point Mr Trump summoned a cadet, Chris Verdugo, to the stage, noting that he completed an 18.5 mile march on a freezing night in January in just two hours and 30 minutes.
Just outside the campus, about three dozen demonstrators gathered before the ceremony and were waving miniature American flags.
One in the crowd carried a sign that said Support Our Veterans and Stop the Cuts, while others held up plastic buckets with the message Go Army Beat Fascism.
Mr Trump gave the commencement address at West Point in 2020, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Cadets gather ahead of the ceremonies (Adam Gray/AP)
He had urged the graduating cadets to 'never forget' the soldiers who fought a war over slavery, in a speech which came as the nation was reckoning with its history on race after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Mr Trump also paid tribute to the military academy's history and its famed graduates, including Douglas MacArthur and Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The ceremony five years ago drew scrutiny because the US Military Academy forced the graduating cadets, who had been at home because of Covid-19, to return to an area near a pandemic hot spot.
Mr Trump was in Alabama, earlier this month to speak to the University of Alabama's graduating class.
His remarks mixed standard commencement fare and advice with political attacks against Mr Biden, musings about transgender athletes and lies about the 2020 election.
On Friday, vice president JD Vance spoke to the graduating class at the US Naval Academy in Maryland.
Mr Vance said that Mr Trump was working to ensure US soldiers are deployed with clear goals rather than the 'undefined missions' and 'open-ended conflicts' of the past.
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