President Donald Trump delivered a chaotic and often bizarre speech Saturday at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he veered off-script repeatedly to talk about everything from trophy wives to yachts and the mobster Al Capone.
The event was supposed to honor the 2025 graduating class. Instead, Trump turned it into a 75-minute political monologue packed with personal grievances, strange anecdotes, and campaign rhetoric.
Wearing his signature red “Make America Great Again” hat, Trump started by bragging about gutting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in the military. “We’ve liberated our troops from divisive and demeaning political trainings,” he said. “There will be no more critical race theory or transgender for everybody.”
This followed his controversial executive order banning DEI programs and erasing protections for transgender, intersex, and nonbinary individuals across the federal government.
Trump told the graduates, “The job of the U.S. 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.” He added, “The military’s job is to dominate any foe and annihilate any threat to America, anywhere, anytime and any place.”
In the months after his order, West Point shut down several student groups focused on race, ethnicity, and gender. Among them: the Asian-Pacific Forum, the National Society of Black Engineers, the Native American Heritage Forum, and others.
He then jumped to immigration. Hours after a judge ruled his administration wrongly deported a Guatemalan man, Trump doubled down. “Our country was invaded for the last four years,” he said. “We’re getting them out and bringing them back where they came from.”
“Hopefully the courts will allow us to continue,” he added. “We had the greatest election victory. This was November 5. We won the popular vote by millions of votes.”
Trump didn’t stop there. He went on a tangent about golf legend Gary Player: “To be really successful, you’re always going to have to work hard,” he said. “He wasn’t as big as the other men… He hits the ball just this far… But he worked very, very hard.”
Moments later, he began reminiscing about William Levitt, the real estate mogul behind Levittown. Then came the punchline.
“He ended up getting a divorce, found a new wife. Could you say a trophy wife? I guess we can say a trophy wife,” Trump said. “It didn’t work out too well… A lot of trophy wives.”
The speech only got stranger. Trump bragged about his many legal battles and claimed he was scrutinized more than one of America’s most notorious criminals.
“I was investigated more than the great late Alphonse Capone,” Trump said. “Alphonse Capone was a monster… I went through more investigations than Alphonse Capone, and now I’m talking to you as president. Can you believe this?”
He wrapped up just before noon and flew out to his Bedminster golf club. He avoided using the ramp at the front of the stage, likely a nod to the infamous 2020 moment when he awkwardly shuffled down a ramp at the same venue. This time, he exited quietly via a side staircase.
