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.)
