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President Trump Addresses West Point Graduates. Aired 11-11:25a ET

Aired May 24, 2025 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[10:59:36]

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Fifth, you have to have the courage to take risks and to do things differently. Eisenhower again was threatened with court martials as a young officer for advocating a new doctrine of tank warfare. Billy Mitchell was thrown out of the army for pioneering the use of air power. They said, what do you mean, air power? Don't be ridiculous.

People willing to try and do things differently. It's never going to be easy for them, but they're the ones that are going to really do the important things. They're the ones who are going to make history.

So don't be ashamed and don't be afraid. This is a time of incredible change. And we do not need an officer corps of careerists and yes-men and people that want to keep it going the way it's been because it changes rapidly, especially what you're doing because, believe it or not, you're in a business and profession where things change as rapidly, like warfare, the type of warfare.

Unfortunately, we're getting to see it with Russia and Ukraine, and we're studying it, and it's a very terrible thing to study. But we're seeing the different forms of warfare. We're seeing the drones that are coming down at angles and with speed and with precision.

We've never seen anything like it. We've never seen anything like it. And we're learning from it.

But your profession changes very rapidly. You've got to keep -- you've got to be at the top of it. You've got to be right at the -- at the head of the needle. We need patriots with guts and vision and backbone who take personal risks to ensure that America wins every single time.

We want to win our battles. You know, I defeated ISIS In three weeks. They told me it would take five years. And the general that did it -- you know, that story -- was named "Razin' Caine". His name is Dan Caine, but his nickname was "Razin' Caine". I said, your name is "Razin' Caine", I love that is that a nickname? That's what they call me, sir.

I love you, general. I think you're the guy I'm looking for. I want to know a guy named "Razin' Caine". And he is now the head of the joint chiefs of staff. And he's a highly-respected man.

And we defeated, think of it, ISIS. They said -- they said, how long in Washington. Sir, it will take four years to defeat them. Maybe five. And maybe we won't because they're all over the place.

And then I met a man that said we can do it in three weeks. And he did it three weeks. And that's why he's the head of the joint chiefs of staff right now.

And we did things that nobody thought were possible. We've had great military success. When you have the right leader and you have the right people, and we have the right people, you're going to have tremendous success.

Success -- never lose your faith in America and the American people, because they're always going to be there for you. 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? Can you believe it?

So you got to fight hard, and you got to never give up. And don't let bad people take you down. You got to let them -- you got to take them down. Got a lot of bad people out there. And those people, you have to figure it out. But you also have a lot of great people.

Finally, hold on to your culture and your traditions, because that's what makes something really great. And that's what's made the army great -- the culture and the tradition.

Whether were talking about a battalion, a business, a sports team, or even a nation, history has shown that in many ways, culture is destiny. So do not let anyone destroy the culture of winning. You have to win. Winning is a beautiful thing.

Losing -- not for us. It's not for us, not for anybody here. If it was, you wouldn't be here.

From the earliest days of our nation, this supreme tradition of American military service has been passed down from soldier to soldier and generation to generation. And it's a beautiful thing to watch.

Graduating today is Cadet Ricky McMahon. Ricky's great grandfather -- stand up wherever you are, Ricky, because you're going to like this. Ricky's great grandfather served in World War One. His grandfather served in World War II, and his uncle, father and mother all graduated from West Point.

Where's Ricky?

In 2004 when Ricky was just a little, little tiny boy. Who would think about that? Ricky, a little tiny boy.

[11:04:48]

TRUMP: His dad, Lt. Col. Michael McMahon, made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation in Afghanistan. Today Lt. Col. McMahon rests not far from here in the West Point Cemetery. Last year, two decades after losing his father, Ricky placed a gold

chip from his dad's 1985 class ring into a crucible along 87 other rings were with it of past West Point grads, that were melted down to forge those now worn by the class of 2025.

Do you all know that? Do you know that? What are you wearing? I want one. Ricky. I want one. Each of you will carry Michael's memory with you always as you continue the legacy he gave you and gave you something that would be so proud. He would be so proud.

He is proud. As he looks down to Ricky and his mom, Jeanette, you embody what this place is all about and I know Michael, he's up there. He's smiling broadly, so proud. He's so proud of you today, you know that.

And he's a man that couldn't be -- and he is a man that couldn't be more proud. And I want to just -- I just love that story. And everybody's ring, they're going to remember you. They're going to remember your family.

And most importantly you're going to remember a great tradition. It's a great tradition of West Point and of winners.

Thank you very much. It's great to meet you. Thank you. You can sit down. You want to come up. If you want to come up, come up, come on up.

Come on up here. That's nice.

You're a handsome guy. They're all good looking here. I don't know what's going on. The whole crowd is beautiful. Thank you very much.

CADET RICKY MCMAHON, WEST POINT GRADUATE: I'd like to thank my mother. I'd like to thank my family. And I'd like to thank G3 -- go gophers.

TRUMP: These a goodlooking people. I'll tell you. General, what's going on over here? Look like all a bunch of male models. I can't stand it.

For two and a half centuries, our republic has endured because of heroes like Michael. They've laid down their lives for America. And because young people like all of you have picked up the banner of service and carried forward the flag of freedom from Lexington to Yorktown, from Gettysburg to Sicily, and from Inchon to Fallujah.

America has been won and saved by an unbroken chain of soldiers and patriots who ran to the sound of the guns, leapt into the maw of battle, and charged into the crucible of fire to seize the crown of victory no matter the odds, no matter the cost, no matter the danger.

All over the world, our soldiers have made sacred the ground where they shed their blood and showed their valor from Seminary Ridge to San Juan Hill, Belleau Wood, Omaha Beach, Leyte Gulf and Ardenne Forest, Chosin Reservoir -- all over, and even a place called Pork Chop Hill. And in all of those battles and so many more, some of the best,

brightest and bravest have come from right here at the U.S. military academy at West Point, one of the great fabled places anywhere in the world.

America's army has never failed us. And with leaders like the West Point class of 2025, the army will never fail. We will never let you down.

And over the last week, I had the honor of speaking to the heads of many countries. And they would say two weeks ago, they say -- they said, sir, we're celebrating the victory today of World War II. And I said, wow, that's nice.

[11:09:46]

TRUMP: Then I'd call another one unrelated. Sir, we're celebrating the victory of World War II. Then I called up the president of France on something, also unrelated. He said, sir, we're celebrating our victory over World War II. I said, whoa, whoa, what have we here?

We helped them a lot.

And I had this -- Russia, I talked to Putin about ending that terrible war that's going on, and he said they're having a big victory march. And they did lose, in all fairness, 51 million people.

But they were all celebrating the only country that wasn't celebrating was the United States of America. And I said, isn't it amazing? We were the ones that won the war and we were helped. We were helped. In some cases, we had to help them, but we were helped by some of the nations, and we were strongly helped by a couple of them.

But every one of them was celebrating that Victory Day. They called it Victory Day in Europe, victory day all over, and we weren't even thought about. Nobody had a victory day.

And so I named that special day and another special day from now on, as a holiday, but a holiday where we work because we don't have enough days, we're going to be having so many holidays, we're not going to be able to work anymore.

But I named it for World War II and a separate day in November, as you know, for World War I. I said, you know, all of these countries that participated in the war are celebrating, but the greatest country of them all, and the country that won the war, nobody even talked about.

And so were going to be talking about it too from now on. And I think you'll appreciate it. We won the First World War. We won the Second World War. And you know where we won them from? Right here at West Point. West Point won the war. You won two world wars and plenty of other things.

But you think of it, we don't want to have a third world war. But we won the First World War. We won the Second World War right here from West Point. And that's something. And we're going to be talking about it. You know, they can talk about

it. And in some cases, as you know, they didn't do too much to help. They were -- they were ground down, but they were celebrating victory.

No, we're going to celebrate victory because we're the ones that won that war. Standing before you today, I know that you will never stop. You will never quit. You will never yield. You will never tire. You will never, ever, ever surrender. Never give up. Remember that. Never give up.

That's another little factor I could have added. Never, ever give up. Raise your right hand. I pledge I will never ever give up. You can never give up. You can never give up.

If you do, you're not going to be successful because you'll go through things that will be bad. You're going to have great moments. You're going to have bad moments. You can never give up.

Through every challenge and every battle, you'll stand strong. You'll work hard. You'll stay tough, and you will fight, fight, fight and win, win, win.

So I want to just congratulate you all. I'm going back now to deal with Russia, to deal with China. What's that -- what's that all about?

That's an -- and to get you lots of victories. We're going to keep winning. This country is going to keep winning. And with you the job is easy.

I want to thank you all. Congratulations to the class of 2025. God bless you all. Incredible people. Thank you very much. Everybody.

(END OF LIVE EVENT)

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: All right. That was President Donald Trump addressing graduates at the U.S. military Academy at West Point. The president there at some points having fun with the crowd there and the cadets inviting a few of them up on stage at points.

This was a commencement address for cadets. At other points, it was a political rally. The president, on and off prompter at points.

Our senior White House reporter, Kevin Liptak joins us live. You're there at the commencement. Long speech, a little short of an hour here. Give us some highlights.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes. And I think this was a speech that really kind of combined the traditional commencement speech.

[11:14:45]

LIPTAK: He talked to these 1,002 cadets who will soon become second lieutenants in the U.S. Army, about his advice, about how he sort of sees them carrying out their mission going forward. He called out individuals in the crowd. It was also, as you pointed out, something of a political speech in

some moments when the president clearly had gone off the teleprompter. It's always interesting to see how those land outside of a political setting.

It was well-received in the stadium, but certainly not sort of an overwhelming crowd like you might hear at a rally when, for example, the president talked about his election victory in November, the mandate that he says he has, going into some of the grievances that he has about the investigations that were carried out into him during his time out of office.

I think the real substance of this speech, though, was when the president was talking about his efforts to remake the U.S. military, whether it was talking about these reinvestments, he's just put forward a request for a $1 trillion military budget.

That's a record number, about a 13 percent increase from the previous figure. Talks about the Iron Dome, talks about making ships and planes in the United States. That's one area where he's trying to remake the military.

The other is in this effort to try and rid the pentagon and service academies like West Point of what he calls absurd ideological experiments. He's talking about efforts to get rid of diversity initiatives within the U.S. military.

He spoke about that at quite some length, saying that his efforts had liberated the troops from diversity trainings. He talked specifically about, for example, getting rid of drag shows at the service academies.

You know, that has been a controversial effort, including here at West Point. And I was just watching some of the faculty members when the president was talking about that. They sort of belied no expression. But this has been something of a sticking point.

You have had at least one faculty member resign from West Point. You have seen a certain number of affinity groups being disbanded on campus at the president's directive at other service academies. You've seen books pulled from the libraries that don't necessarily accord with the president's viewpoints.

And so that, I think, was the real meat of this speech as the president talks about these efforts to really reform the military. And he's worked at great speeds to do that since coming into office.

He also talked about the effort of peace through strength, really going after some of his predecessors for what he called nation building. It's very clear that the president, this president has a very different viewpoint of how to use the military, of how the commander-in-chief should employ the military abroad.

And certainly, that was his message to these graduates, as they now go from being cadets to second lieutenants in the U.S. army, joining, as the president called it, that long gray line, Victor. BLACKWELL: Kevin Liptak for us there at West Point. Kevin, thank you

for that.

Joining me now is CNN military analyst, retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton and CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein. Gentlemen, good morning to you.

Colonel, let me start with you, because this day is about those cadets, soon to be officers. The president said, instead of spreadsheets and stock options, they chose honor and sacrifice.

This was a speech to members of the U.S. military, future leaders of the U.S. military. So in that context, your assessment of what you heard from the president. Some of it true, some of it clearly not.

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes. Victor, it's you know, it's very interesting when you listen to the totality of this speech. There were some elements where he definitely you know, was lauding the service and sacrifice of the cadets as they now become second lieutenants.

And of course, it's ironic when you compare it to some of the things that we heard about President Trump during his first term, where you know, we had the infamous "suckers and losers" comment attributed to him.

But in this particular speech, one of the things that did stick out to me was the fact that he, I think for the first time revealed that the United States had been working on hypersonic missile designs, that he alleges the Russians stole.

And that is something where he very briefly mentioned something that has absolute significance in terms of the war fighting capability. When you look at, you know, how these cadets will -- who will now become second lieutenants, move forward into the army, into a changed military, he's basically pointing the way for them to actually go ahead and become, in essence drivers of change.

[11:19:40]

LEIGHTON: And that, I think was somewhat remarkable because some of the changes that some of these people will want to institute may very well clash with the types of changes that the president and the Secretary of Defense have promulgated during this President Trump's second term.

BLACKWELL: Ron, this speech seemed to be pretty typical for a Trump speech -- on prompter, off prompter.

Even the setting there at West Point became political. Alphonse Capone. Bill Levitt (ph), at some points, you could have, you know, slid the background out and put a "Make America Great Again background" and it would have seemed at the appropriate place.

RON BROWNSTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. You're right.

BLACKWELL: What's your assessment from the political context of what we heard from the president today?

BROWNSTEIN: Victor, it was kind of a commencement speech grafted onto a rally speech. And to me, the tip off was the hat at the beginning, wearing the hat with his campaign slogan in a setting that historically has been viewed as nonpartisan and that is, I think, revealing of the larger question about Trump's relation with the military.

And what we have seen across the federal government is Trump trying to exert personal control and put a personal ideological stamp on every aspect of the executive branch, including those that have traditionally been insulated from politics, whether it's the military and the kind of the way in which they have been enlisted into his ideological crusades on gender and race and banning transgender troops or involving them in the border.

Similar to what's happening with the Justice Department, breaking down the traditional barriers between direct presidential control and decisions, particularly about criminal investigations.

I mean, what you saw this morning, you know, had its kind of folksy moments and kind of meandering moments, but it was actually, I think, revealing of this larger project, which, you know, has been called the unitary executive theory in which the president is essentially asserting personal control and demanding personal loyalty and kind of personal, following, you know, from every aspect of the federal government, including those that traditionally have been kept apart from politics.

BLACKWELL: Colonel, typically in a speech to the -- to West Point, to the military academy there, to the air force academy, as you spoke to before, there would be some mention of the geopolitical engagements of the moment. There wasn't much more than a passing glance at -- I'm going to leave now and focus on Russia and China when the U.S. is engaged in negotiations with Iran, with Israel, and, trying to end the war with Hamas, with Ukraine and Russia.

Are you surprised that we didn't hear more from the president about some absolutes, about some goals, about strategy as it relates to these conflicts around the world.?

LEIGHTON: In a way I am, Victor, because one of the things that you expect in a speech like this is that strategic moment. There have been previous speeches, previous commencement addresses at military academies that have outlined major strategies.

Ronald Reagan, you know, for example, was somebody who promulgated strategies that some of these speeches that he gave at the service academies. And it's an opportunity for the president to do that.

So in some ways, this was an opportunity that the president may have missed. He did allude to it, as you mentioned. You know, the fact that he'd get busy with, you know, issues involving China and Russia.

He didn't talk about trade, which is not directly related to the military. But what he did do is he kind of alluded to some of the past -- what he sees as triumphs for the United States under his previous term, such as the defeat of ISIS.

And now, one can quibble with the exact dates there and the exact things that happened. But the fact of the matter is that you know, the United States both in the Trump and the Biden administrations did basically defeat ISIS, at least for the moment.

And, of course, there's a new opening in Syria that he also didn't talk about, even though meeting with the new Syrian president, al- Sharaa, he may have opened up a possible dialog and a possible way toward lesser conflict, if not outright peace, in that part of the Middle East.

So there were some things where he could have articulated a grand vision, but he really didn't do that. And you know, he was, in essence, you know, running a victory lap for some of the things that happened in the past, but not really charting a course for the future.

BLACKWELL: Yes. And Ron, maybe the difficulty with running a victory lap on Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Hamas, Iran, Syria is because at this point there is no -- there's no victory there.

And the reporting from the White House is there's frustration over -- over those talks.

[11:24:53]

BROWNSTEIN: Well, you know, of course, the president famously said over and over on the campaign trail that he would end the Ukraine- Russia war on day one, and now he is essentially, by all reports, kind of throwing up his hands and saying, well, I guess I, you know, I guess we can't -- we can't end it.

And rather than seeing that as a reason to double down on support for Ukraine maybe walking away to an even -- an even greater extent.

You know, you did hear in this speech his kind of view of the world, you know, that we have been taken advantage of by allies. He criticizes usually even more than adversaries.

And I think you got a window into the way he views the world, where essentially the categories of allies and adversaries, as we have known them, don't really matter and don't really exist.

I mean, he basically looks at each individual country and what, you know, what we can get out of them and how we can pressure them. I mean, you know, the fact that the E.U. you know, contains the European nations that have been our closest allies you know, for most -- certainly for the -- for the past century, and they're the ones facing the threats of 50 percent tariffs.

So you did get, I think, some of that worldview today about the way this is transactional. But I think that above all to me was the way how he views the military, like every other aspect of the federal government as an extension of his personal will.

And what a change that is from the kind of degrees of insulation that existed under former presidents.

BLACKWELL: Ron Brownstein, Col. Cedric Leighton, thank you both.

And well have more on this throughout the day on CNN.

"THE AMANPOUR HOUR" starts after a quick break.

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