“This decision bypasses a long-established, evidence-based process used to ensure vaccine safety and ignores the expertise of independent medical experts, including members of CDC committees who are examining the evidence regarding the vaccine to make recommendations for the fall,” said Sean T. O’Leary, M.D., M.P.H., FAAP, chair of the AAP Committee on Infectious Diseases.

The statement comes after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will no longer recommend routine COVID-19 vaccination for healthy children and pregnant people. 

The announcement bypassed the CDC’s usual process, which involves review and voting by an independent panel of vaccine experts. Historically, the CDC director has almost always deferred to this panel before making changes to vaccine recommendations. 

Kennedy’s move was announced via a video statement on X alongside FDA Commissioner Martin Makary, M.D., M.P.H., and NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya.

Kennedy cited a lack of any clinical data to support the repeat booster strategy in children as a key rationale for the change.

While the risk of severe COVID-19 is lower in healthy children than in adults, vaccination still provides meaningful protection, especially for those with underlying health conditions or other risk factors.

Clinical trials and real-world data show that COVID-19 vaccines are effective in preventing symptomatic infection and, more importantly, severe illness and hospitalization in children. Vaccination also reduces the risk of long COVID in children.

Major medical organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, continue to recommend COVID-19 vaccination for pregnant people, emphasizing that the benefits far outweigh any potential risks.

Vaccination during pregnancy is highly effective at reducing the risk of severe illness, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19. It also lowers the risk of adverse outcomes such as stillbirth and preterm birth. Additionally, antibodies generated by the vaccine can cross the placenta, providing newborns with some protection during their first months of life, a period when they are particularly vulnerable to severe COVID-19.

Kennedy, who has been critical of the COVID-19 vaccine that was funded by the first Trump administration, called for new vaccines to undergo placebo testing earlier this month. 

The new policy would mandate that, before vaccines can be authorized for use in people, they must be tested in studies where half of the participants receive a placebo, typically a saline injection, allowing researchers to directly compare outcomes between those who receive the vaccine and those who do not.

Placebo-controlled trials are a standard method for establishing the safety and efficacy of new vaccines, but many experts caution that using placebos is ethically questionable when an effective vaccine is already available.

The FDA followed this line of thinking by mandating large, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials placebo-controlled trials for the evaluation of any new COVID-19 vaccines. This decision could affect the availability of COVID vaccines next fall.

The mRNA-based vaccines (such as Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna) showed efficacy rates of about 94–95% in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 in large phase III trials. Adenovirus-vectored vaccines (such as AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson) also performed well, with efficacy rates ranging from 66% to over 80%, depending on the specific vaccine and population studied.

Real-world studies have confirmed these high levels of protection. For example, three doses of mRNA vaccines provided nearly 89% effectiveness against death from COVID-19 and about 77% effectiveness against hospitalization, even during periods when more transmissible variants were circulating. Booster doses have been shown to restore waning immunity to robust levels.

Vaccinated individuals who do become infected are less likely to develop Long COVID compared to those who are unvaccinated.

The FDA will continue to approve updated COVID-19 vaccines for seniors (65+) and individuals with underlying medical conditions that increase the risk of severe illness, such as diabetes, obesity, or immunocompromise. Pregnant people with additional risk factors may still be eligible for vaccination, but the government will no longer issue a blanket recommendation for all pregnancies.

Major medical organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, continue to recommend COVID-19 vaccination for pregnant people, emphasizing that the benefits far outweigh any potential risks.

Vaccination during pregnancy is highly effective at reducing the risk of severe illness, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19. Additionally, antibodies generated by the vaccine can cross the placenta, providing newborns with some protection during their first months of life, a period when they are particularly vulnerable to severe COVID-19.

The post CDC and FDA Announce Major Changes to COVID-19 Vaccine Recommendations first appeared on SJO Daily.

President Trump’s 2026 budget proposal calls for a $646 million cut to FEMA, targeting grant programs that the administration says duplicate existing state and federal efforts, while the department, which responds in the aftermath of natural disasters, has lost at least one-third of its staff since Trump’s second term began in January.

The financial proposal, which passed in the House of Representatives with a vote of 215-214, eliminates several longstanding programs, such as the Rural Development Community Facilities Grant and Loan Program and the Community Development Block Grant Program, both of which have supported local disaster preparedness and recovery for decades. The administration argues these cuts are necessary to “reduce wasteful and woke FEMA grant programs” and to refocus the agency on “sound emergency management”.

However, independent assessments highlight that legislative and coordination challenges, rather than deliberate waste, often drive these redundancies.

The FEMA-related programs and initiatives the administration has specifically targeted for cuts or elimination include:

• Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) Program
  This major grant program, designed to help communities prepare for natural disasters like flooding and wildfires, has been fully terminated. All pending and future applications have been canceled, and undisbursed funds are being returned to the federal treasury.
• National Domestic Preparedness Consortium
  The administration argues this program lacks congressional authorization and duplicates other federal and state efforts, so it is slated for elimination, although it delivers specialized training and technical assistance to emergency responders and local officials to enhance preparedness for terrorism, natural disasters, and other hazards.
• Targeting Violence and Terrorism Prevention Program
  This program funds initiatives aimed at preventing targeted violence and terrorism through community engagement, education, and intervention strategies. It was cited as “weaponized” by the administration.
• Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP)
  While not fully eliminated, the administration has stopped automatically approving new allocations under this program and is considering further redesigns and possible cuts, especially for smaller disasters and certain types of events like snowstorms. This program offers post-disaster funding to states and communities to implement long-term hazard mitigation measures that reduce future disaster losses. Research shows that every $1 invested in disaster mitigation saves up to $13 in future damages and recovery costs. Cutting these investments will likely increase the long-term economic toll of disasters on families, businesses, and taxpayers.
• Preparedness Grants Portfolio (unspecified reductions)
  The administration references reducing or consolidating grants within this portfolio, which encompasses a variety of grant programs that support state and local governments in building capabilities to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from emergencies, arguing that state-level programs are better suited for many of these needs.
• Programs and activities related to “equity,” “diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI),” and “multicultural training”
  The budget proposal explicitly states it will end funding for activities promoting these priorities within FEMA, including webinars and training sessions. These programs generally ensure disaster response and recovery programs are accessible and effective for all communities, including those historically underserved or marginalized.

Additionally, while not FEMA-specific, the budget also eliminates the following programs that often support emergency management and disaster recovery at the community level:

• Rural Development Community Facilities Grant and Loan Program
  Provides loans and grants for community projects, including fire and EMS stations and apparatus.
• Community Development Block Grant Program (CDBG)
  A long-standing program providing financial assistance to state and local governments, including for disaster recovery and resilience.

Many local and rural governments lack the tax base or financial reserves to cover the high costs of disaster response, debris removal, infrastructure repair, and emergency housing, making federal grants essential for immediate and effective action. Federal funding ensures that underserved, rural, and disadvantaged communities can access technical assistance, planning resources, and capacity-building support, helping them overcome barriers to recovery and resilience that wealthier areas might not face.

The budget cuts have been accompanied by an unprecedented reduction in FEMA’s workforce. At least 2,000 of the agency’s roughly 6,100 full-time employees have either left or plan to leave due to waves of terminations and voluntary retirements ordered by the Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE), a new office established to streamline federal agencies. These departures represent nearly a third of FEMA’s permanent staff, not including additional reductions expected in the coming months.

The timing of these cuts has alarmed both current and former FEMA officials, as the nation heads into hurricane and wildfire season. FEMA was already facing a 35% staffing gap in 2022, according to a Government Accountability Office report, and has struggled to keep pace with the growing number and scale of disasters fueled by climate change.

The impact of these staffing reductions is already being felt on the ground. 

The Trump administration has recently granted federal disaster assistance through FEMA, but the delays in FEMA presence after floods and tornadoes have left elected officials sounding the alarm.

President Trump approved a major disaster declaration for Kentucky on May 23, 2025, following tornadoes and severe storms on May 16-17. This action made FEMA assistance available to affected individuals in Caldwell, Laurel, Pulaski, Russell, Trigg, and Union counties. Residents can receive grants for temporary housing, home repairs, and other needs not covered by insurance. Disaster Recovery Centers have opened in the affected counties to help survivors apply for aid.

Arkansas’ request for federal disaster assistance was initially denied but later approved after an appeal by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and direct discussions with President Trump. On May 13, the administration granted a major disaster declaration for the March 14-15 tornadoes, providing FEMA aid for temporary housing, home repairs, and other recovery needs in several counties. However, while individual assistance was approved, some requests for public infrastructure aid were denied, leaving local governments to cover a significant portion of repair costs.

St. Louis and surrounding areas have also received a federal disaster declaration following recent storms. While FEMA funding is available, St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer has publicly voiced concerns about the timeliness and adequacy of FEMA’s response. Local officials worry about whether the aid will be sufficient for long-term recovery.

FEMA has provided disaster aid to North Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, but the state’s request for an extension of 100% federal reimbursement for debris removal was denied. The cost-share reverted to the standard 90% federal and 10% state split, which Governor Josh Stein says could cost North Carolina taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and slow recovery efforts. FEMA’s decision stands in contrast to previous disasters where 100% cost-share extensions were granted..

The post FEMA Faces Deep Cuts and Layoffs Amid Major Budget Overhaul first appeared on SJO Daily.

Trump’s recruiting claims lack substantiation. He asserted that the military had set a “brand new peacetime recruiting record” and that “by next week, the army is expected to surpass its recruiting targets for the entire year,” adding this “hasn’t happened in 28 years”. No official recruiting statistics or verification of these specific claims appear in the available sources.

During Trump’s first term (2017-2021), his administration oversaw substantial increases in defense budgets, with $2.2 trillion in spending over four years, including $738 billion in 2020. For Fiscal Year 2026, the administration’s budget proposal includes a discretionary base budget of $1.01 trillion, a significant increase from the previous year’s enacted budget of $892.6 billion.

The claim of defeating ISIS in “three weeks” is false. ISIS lost 95% of its territory by December 2017, and the formal end of its territorial caliphate occurred in March 2019. This was the result of a multi-year campaign by a U.S.-led coalition that began airstrikes in August 2014. While the speaker declared ISIS defeated in December 2018, the final territorial defeat took several more months.

Available documentation provides no corroboration for allegations that Russian entities obtained classified hypersonic missile blueprints from U.S. sources during the Obama presidency. While multiple nations accelerated hypersonic research in the 2010s, open-source technical analyses suggest Russia’s Avangard and Zircon systems derive from indigenous Soviet-era scramjet research rather than purloined Western designs. The U.S. Government Accountability Office’s 2023 review of hypersonic program security found “no substantiated incidents of foreign state actors compromising current-generation hypersonic glide body intellectual property”.

The U.S. officially accepted a Boeing 747-8 luxury jet from Qatar as a gift, which the speaker expressed a desire to convert for use as a new Air Force One. However, experts have warned that converting such a plane to meet Air Force One standards would take years and incur significant costs (about $1 billion). The project for new Air Force One planes, initially contracted under the Obama administration, has faced setbacks and is not expected to be ready for several more years. While the Trump administration in 2020 agreed to sell F-35 stealth fighter jets to the UAE, that particular sale was later suspended by the UAE in 2021.

The claim of “soaring morale to the highest levels in many decades” is subjective and not directly supported by the provided information. The assertion that “last year was the worst of all, the last year of the Biden administration. We couldn’t get anybody to join our military” is inaccurate. Military records indicate that enlistments began rebounding from a pandemic slump long before Election Day in November 2024, and numbers continued to rise in 2023 and 2024 (under the Biden administration). While the Army did miss its recruiting targets in Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 and FY2023, it successfully met its revised goal in FY2024.

The claim of setting a “brand new peacetime recruiting record” is not supported by the provided data. While January 2025 saw the best Army recruiting numbers in 15 years, and December 2024 in 12 years, these figures (e.g., 15,597 enlistments in January 2025) are lower than monthly highs seen in 2018 (during Trump’s first term: 16,800) and August 2024 (under the Biden presidency: 24,000). Overall, enlistments remain significantly below Cold War highs, such as over 220,000 people enlisting in 1990. A 1940 peacetime record cited in the provided material refers to 85,000 volunteers signing up for a three-year enlistment, a much larger scale than current monthly figures.

Trump’s average annual GDP growth during his first term (2017-2021) was 2.3%. This was the same as the average during the Obama administration (2009-2017) and lower than the Biden administration’s average (2021-2025) of 3.2%. While 2.3% is considered a healthy range for GDP growth, it was not “the greatest, single greatest economy for a president in history”. Trump left office with 3 million fewer jobs than when he took office, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, making him the only modern U.S. president to leave office with a smaller workforce. The unemployment rate, after hitting a 50-year low of 3.5% in February 2020, surged to a 90-year high of 14.7% in April 2020 due to the pandemic.

The claim that the U.S. economy is “hotter now than we’ve ever seen it” and has “turned it around” from being “as cold as it gets” a year ago is not fully supported by data. Real gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 0.3% in the first quarter of 2025 (January, February, and March). The U.S. monthly international trade deficit increased in March 2025, rising from $123.2 billion in February to $140.5 billion. While personal income and consumption increased in March 2025, the personal saving rate was 3.9%, indicating a mixed economic picture. The unemployment rate in April 2025 was 4.2%, an increase from 4.0% in January 2025. However, job creation has shown positive movement, with 228,000 jobs created in March alone, and 345,000 jobs created since January 2025, with claims of private sector driving growth.

Under the Biden administration, the average number of monthly border encounters was nearly 160,000, with a daily average peaking at 15,000. Total encounters over the four years of the Biden administration were approximately 11 million. While these figures represent high numbers of crossings, they do not equate to “hundreds of thousands of people coming into our country a day,” which would imply tens of millions annually.

The claim of near-zero crossings (“nobody come in,” “99.999%”) and only “one person” coming in during the last week and a half is a severe exaggeration and is factually incorrect. While encounters have significantly decreased under the current administration, they are not zero. March 2025 saw the lowest monthly number of border encounters in recorded history, at less than 7,200 (an average of 232 per day). February 2025 saw the lowest daily number at less than 200. In April 2025, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded 8,383 apprehensions along the southwest border (an average of 279 per day), which represents a 93% drop from April 2024.

In Fiscal Year 2024, 1.1% of people stopped while illegally crossing the border had a prior criminal conviction, accounting for approximately 17,000 arrests. The most common prior conviction was illegal entry. Homicide or manslaughter represented only 0.1% of all past criminal convictions among those apprehended. While the administration has reported arresting over 151,000 illegal aliens and deporting over 135,000 in its first 100 days, including members of gangs like Tren De Aragua and MS-13 , the general assertion that large numbers of “criminals,” “people outta prisons,” or “mentally insane” are simply “walking in, no vetting, no check-in, no nothing” is an overgeneralization and highly inflammatory.

The Transcript

“Well, I want to thank you very much. This is a beautiful place. I’ve been here many times going to high school, not so far away. Good, a good place. Also, a military academy. Not quite of this distinction, but it was a lot of fun for me. And I just wanna say hello, cadets, and on behalf of our entire nation, let me begin by saying congratulations to the West Point class of 2025, you are winners, every single one of you.

Thank you. And now we want you to relax, and I’m supposed to say, “At ease.” But you’re already at ease. You’re at ease because you’ve made a great choice in what you’re doing. Your choices in life has been really amazing. So this is a celebration,n and let’s have a little fun. I want to thank your highly respected superintendent, General Steven Gilland, and he is really, uh, something, I got to know him backstage with his beautiful family and his reputation. His wife is just incredible, his reputation is unbelievable.

And thank you very much. And your daughter is a winner also. Just like everybody out there, real winner. Thank you. Thank you. I also want to thank your [Inaudible] General RJ Garcia, Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, Army Chief of Staff, General Randy George, Senator Ashley Moody, Representatives Steve Womack, Bill Huizenga, Pat Ryan, Mark Green, Keith Self.

Acting US attorney, Alina Habba. And very much, uh, just all of the friends. We have a lot of friends in the audience today. And I just want to thank ’em all for being here. We have a tremendous amount of my friends. They wanted to come up and they wanted to watch this ceremony and they wanted to watch you much more so than me. So I just want to thank so many people are here.

Over the past four years, an extraordinary group of professors, teachers, coaches, leaders, and warriors have transformed this class of cadets into an exceptional group of scholars and soldiers. And so let’s give the entire group, the entire West Point faculty, the staff, for their incredible love of you and outstanding devotion to the core.

Let’s give them a little hand. And importantly, we can’t forget all of those people beaming with pride, look at them in the audience, oh, they’re so proud. They’re in the stands. So thank your parents, your grandparents and family members who made this all possible for you. Thank you. And I think they must have done something right based on what I’m looking at. America loves our military moms and dads.

Nearly one-third of the cadets graduating today are themselves the children of veterans. So to everyone with us this morning who served America in uniform, no matter your age, please stand so we can salute your service, we’d like to see who you are. Congratulations. Great job. Every cadet on the field before me should savor this morning. ’cause this is a day that you will never, ever forget.

In a few moments, you’ll become graduates of the most elite and storied military academy in human history. And you’ll become officers in the greatest and most powerful army the world has ever known. And I know because I rebuilt that army, and I rebuilt the military. And we rebuilt it like nobody has ever rebuilt it before in my first term.

Your experience here at West Point has been anything but easy. — came for duty. You came to serve your country, and you came to show yourselves, your family, and the world that you are among the smartest, toughest, strongest, most lethal warriors ever to walk on this planet. Looking out at all of you today, I can proudly say, mission accomplished.

Great job. But now you have to go on. You have to forget that ’cause now you have another. It’s a sad thing, isn’t it? You know, you can’t rest on your laurels no matter what. You just have to keep going. You take it, you take a little day off and you go on to the rest. ’cause you have to have victory, after victory, after victory.

And that’s what you’re gonna have as you receive your commissions as second lieutenants, each of you continues down the same hallowed path, walked by Titans and legends of US, military law. Giants like Ulysses S. Grant, John Black Jack Pershing, Dwight David Eisenhower, the one and only Douglas MacArthur, old blood and guts, George Patton and Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf, all great.

So many more. They and countless other patriots before you have walked out of these halls and straight into history. And today, you officially join those immortal heroes in proud ranks of the long gray line. You know that term. So beautiful. The long gray line. Among the 1,000 cadets graduating today, 26 of you wear the prestigious Star Wreath, signifying the highest level of academic achievement.

Please stand up. 26. Let’s see if somebody stands who shouldn’t be standing. Congratulations. That’s a big honor. This class includes an incredible four Rhodes Scholars. Stand up, please. Four. Wow. That’s tied for the most of any West Point class since 1959. That’s great. Four. Congratulations. Boy, oh boy, oh boy.

I wanna bring them right to the Oval Office. I don’t wanna have them go too far away from me. Eight cadets here today took on the challenge of designing their own hypersonic rocket. Oh, we can use you. We’re building them right now. You know, we, uh, we had ours stolen. We had — We are the designer of it. We had it stolen during the Obama administration.

They stole it. You know who stole it? The Russians stole it. Something bad happened. But we’re now — We’re the designer of it and we’re now building them and lots of them. And earlier this year, they launched it into space, setting a world record for amateur rocketry. Can’t get you in there fast enough.

This class excelled not only mentally but also physically last January when more than 1,000 cadets volunteered for an 18-and-a-half mile march on a freezing winter night. Cadet Chris Verdugo completed the task in 2 hours and 30 minutes flat, smashing the international record for the competition by 13 minutes.

Where is he? Where is he? Come up here. Come up here, Chris. Get up here, Chris. Wow. Come here. That’s — By 13 minutes. Come here, Chris. I wanna see this guy. Say something. Come here. Come here.

(Chris Verdugo speaks)

Wow. That’s great. Keep it going, Chris. That really is the definition of Army strong, isn’t it? International. International. This class includes 513 graduates who completed Air Assault School, 70 who completed Airborne School, eight who made it through the ultra-elite Army Diver School, among the most difficult and grueling programs anywhere on Earth.

That includes the first two women in West Point history to complete Diver School. cadets Megan Cooper and Clara Sebu. Where are you? Stand up. Where are they? Wow. Great job. That is not easy. Congratulations, Megan, Clara. That’s a job well done. Fantastic. Thank you very much. Some of you achieved a different kind of distinction here at the academy, including seven-century men who completed 100 hours of marching for disciplinary — oh, no, infractions.

No. Don’t tell me I’m doing this. Oh, I’m so sorry. Would you like to stand up? (laughs) I don’t know. I think I saw Chris standing up. Chris, what, what’s going on here? Well, you had one good, one not so good. Right, Chris? Can’t believe Chris is standing up. But we want everyone to leave here today, Chris, so you’re gonna be okay because I’m gonna do something with a clean slate.

So in keeping with tradition, I hereby pardon all cadets on restriction for minor conduct offenses effective immediately. So you’re all okay. You’re all okay. The class of 2025 is a lot to be proud of, including your first-rate athletes and athletics. You are something. I’ve been watching too. I watch. I love the sports stuff.

What you’ve done is pretty amazing. Last year, for the first time ever, army lacrosse became the number one ranked men’s lacrosse team in the entire country. Look at that. Those of you on the team, stand. That’s a big honor. Stand. Great. That’s a tough sport too. That’s number one in the country. Your sophomore year, Army football beat Navy 20-17. And the you did it again, beating Navy 17 to 11 and dominating Air Force 23 to three.

But, this year, the Black Knights fought your way into the top 20 nationally and racked up your longest winning streak since 1949 with the help of graduating quarterback Cadet Bryson Daily or, as you call him, Captain America. Captain America. Stand up, Bryson. Where is Bryson? We gotta get him up here, right?

Come on, Bryson. Come on up. Man, oh, man, I heard — I heard he’s, uh — well, I came to a game, and he was — I said, “Yeah, he can get into the NFL, can’t he?” But he chose this life and, you know what, I think he made a good choice. Come on up here, Bryson. Come on up. Wow.

(Byson Daily speaks)

All right. Go, Army football. Shout out to Hogs, H4. Um, can’t wait to graduate. Love you, guys. Thank you. It’s nice to meet you, sir.

If there anything we can do, just let me know. Okay? It’s a great honor.

(Byson Daily speaks)

What a great guy. Well, I just tapped his shoulders like I hit a piece of steel. The guy’s in good shape. There’s a reason, you know, there’s always a reason for success. Thank you, Bryson. At a time when other top college quarterbacks were thinking about going pro, Bryson’s mind was on something else. As he told an interviewer earlier this year, “I’m focused on my career as an infantry officer.” That’s what he wants to do. So, Bryson, you did the right thing, and that’s service at its finest.

Thanks, Bryson. That’s amazing. He’s an amazing guy with an amazing team. Each of you on the field today is among the most talented members of your generation. You could have done anything you wanted. You could have gone anywhere. You could have gone to any school. This is one of the hardest schools to get into.

And writing your own ticket to top jobs on Wall Street or Silicon Valley wouldn’t be bad, but I think what you’re doing is better. Instead of sports teams and spreadsheets and software, you chose a life of service, very important service, instead of stock options. And I do that stuff. It’s sort of boring, honestly.

Compared to what you’re doing, it’s real boring. You chose honor and you chose sacrifice. And, instead of business suits and dress shoes, you chose muddy boots and fatigues, keeping yourself in shape, because West Point cadets don’t just have the brightest minds, you also have the bravest hearts and the noblest souls.

You’re amazing people. I could not be more proud to serve you as your commander-in-chief. And our country is doing well. We’ve turned it around. Very quickly, we’ve turned it around. I just got back from the Middle East, and I was at, as you know, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE. And, I will tell you, they said, all three leaders, great leaders of those three nations, they all said the same thing.

The United States of America is hotter now than we’ve ever seen it and, a year ago, it was as cold as it gets. And it’s true. It’s true. We have the hottest country in the world, and the whole world is talking about it. And that’s an honor for all of us. I cannot wait to see the glory that is still ahead.

However, for the West Point Class of 2025, and we’re gonna help you a lot because we’re gonna give you a nation as good or better than it ever was. That’s what I promise you. All the victories that you’ve had together on these grounds will soon pale in comparison to the momentous deeds that you’ll perform on the mission you’re accepting today and as, uh, future leader of America’s Army.

And we have that Army geared up. We have ordered, you know, we just want $1 trillion military budget, general. Do you know that? 1 trillion? Some people say, “Could you cut it back?” I said, “I’m not cutting 10 cents.” There’s another thing we can cut. We can cut plenty of others, right, Dan? We can cut plenty of other things.

And you have a good man in Dan, too, general. I think you’re gonna find that it’s a very different, uh, warfare out there today. Now, they’ve introduced a thing called drone. A drone is a little bit different. It makes — You have to go back and learn a whole new form of warfare, and you’re gonna do it better than anybody else.

There won’t be anybody close. Generation after generation, the men and women of the Army have done whatever it takes to defend our flag, pouring out their blood onto the fields of battle all over the world. And, all over the world, you’re respected like nobody is respected. Our soldiers have sprinted through storms of bullets, clouds of shrapnel, slogged through miles of dirt and oceans of sand, scaled towering cliffs of jagged rock.

And, time and time again, the American soldier is charged into the fires of hell and sent the devil racing in full retreat. No task has ever been too tough for America’s Army. And now that 250-year legacy of glory and triumph belongs to you, the 1,000 newest officers of the greatest fighting force in the history of the world.

And that’s what you are, and that’s what you’re being thought of. Again, you are the first West Point graduates of the Golden Age of America. This is the golden age, I tell you. Promise. We’re in a new age. This is the Golden Age, and you are the going to lead the Army to summits of greatness that has never reached before.

And you see that. And you see what’s happening. You see what’s going on in the world. Each of you is entering the Officer Corps at a defining moment in the Army’s history. For at least two decades, political leaders from both parties have dragged our military into missions, it was never meant to be. It wasn’t meant to be. People would say, “Why are we doing this?

Why are we wasting our time, money, and souls,” in some case. They said to our warriors on nation-building crusades to nations that wanted nothing to do with us, led by leaders that didn’t have a clue in distant lands, while abusing our soldiers with absurd ideological experiments here and at home. All of that’s ended.

You know that. All of it’s ended. It’s ended, strongly ended. They’re not even allowed to think about it anymore. They subjected the Armed Forces to all manner of social projects and political causes while leaving our borders undefended and depleting our arsenals to fight other countries’ wars. We fought for other countries’ borders, but we didn’t fight for our own border.

But now we do, like we have never fought before, by the way. But under the Trump administration, those days are over. We’re getting rid of the 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.

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. The military’s job is to dominate any foe and annihilate any threat to America, anywhere, anytime, in any place. A big part of that job is to be respected again.

And you are, as of right now, respected more than any army anywhere in the world. And that’s happening. And I can tell you, you are respected like nobody can believe. As president, I am laser-focused on our core national interests. My preference will always be to make peace and to seek partnership, even with countries where our differences may be profound.

As you know, we’re working on a lot of things right now. When I left office four years ago, we had no wars, we had no problems, we had nothing but success. We had the most incredible economy, the greatest, single greatest economy for a president in history. I think we’re gonna beat it this time by a lot, if you want to know the truth.

But we had something going on very special. But if the United States or its allies are ever threatened or attacked, the Army will obliterate our opponents with overwhelming strength and devastating force. That’s why my administration has begun a colossal buildup of the United States Armed Forces, a buildup like we’ve never had before.

Peace through strength. You know the term, I’ve used it a lot. Because as much as you wanna fight, I’d rather do it without having to fight. I just wanna look at them and have them fold. And that’s happening. That’s happening. And I’ve approved a one-trillion-dollar investment. And that will be, again, the largest ever in the history of our country.

And we are buying you new airplanes, brand-new, beautiful planes, redesigned planes, brand-new planes, totally stealth planes. I hope they’re stealth. I don’t know, that whole stealth thing, I’m sorta wondering. You mean if we shape a wing this way, they don’t see it, but the other way they see it? I’m not so sure.

But that’s what they tell me. We have the best tanks anywhere in the world. We’re gonna start shipbuilding again. We’re gonna start ship. We used to build a ship a day. Now we don’t build them anymore. We had a lot of people that didn’t know much about getting things built. But that’s all I’ve done in my life, is build.

We’re gonna have the best missiles, we already do, drones and much, much more. And earlier this week, I think you’ll like this, I announced that we are officially building all in America, made in America, designed in America. We’re the only ones that could do it, because we’re the only ones that, with the great technology, we’re building the Golden Dome Missile Defense Shield to protect our homeland and to protect West Point from attack.

And it will be completed before I leave office. And you know, you wouldn’t think this, but our enemies are very unhappy about it. You’ve been hearing, you’ve been reading, “Why are they doing that? Why?” Well, we’re doing it because we wanna be around for a long time. That’s why we’re doing it. We’re also restoring the fundamental principle that a central purpose of our military is to protect our own borders from invasion.

Our country was invaded for the last four years, and they’ve allowed people to come into our country that shouldn’t be, that shouldn’t be here. Criminals walk in, no vetting, no check-in, no nothing. Where are they coming from? And they were taking people outta prisons. They were taking gang members. They were taking the mentally insane and allowing them to come in. And we’re getting them out of our country.

We have no choice. We’re getting them out and bringing them back where they came from.

Have no choice. And it’s not easy. It’s not easy. But hopefully the courts will allow us to continue. You know, we had the greatest election victory. This was, uh, November 5th was we won the popular vote by millions of votes. We won all seven swing states. We won everything. We won 2,750 districts against 505, 2,750 against 505. We had a great mandate and it gives us the right to do what we wanna do to make our country great again.

And that’s what we’re going to do. And on day one, I deployed our military to the southern border, and since that day we’ve reduced the number of illegal border crossings where there used to be hundreds of thousands of people coming into our country a day, we had nobody come in in the last week and a half.

We were at 99.999%, 99.999. Think of that. That was with the help of our military. We had one person come in. One. You know why? He got very sick, and we brought him through to have him brought to a hospital. One person. And for that, please don’t hold me responsible, but that’s okay. They did the right thing.

Gone are the days where defending every nation but our own was the primary thought. We are putting America first. We have to put America first. We have to rebuild and defend our nation. And very shortly you’re going to see a nation better than it’s ever been. And you see that with the trade. For years, we’ve been ripped off by every nation in the world on trade.

We’ve been ripped off at the NATO level. We’ve been ripped off like no country has ever been ripped off. But they don’t rip us off anymore. They’re not gonna rip us off anymore. And you’re seeing it. You have to watch what we’re doing on trade. I know it’s not your primary thing, but it’s quite important in all fairness.

But watch. You’ll see what’s going on. You’ve been reading about it over the last few days. We’re making deals with other nations that were not even — Nobody thought it would be even possible. And uh, the reason is very simple. They respect us again. They’re respecting our country again. That’s what you want.

And everything we do, we are bringing common sense back to America. It’s all about common sense. We can say we’re liberal, we’re conservative. The new word is progressive. They don’t like using the word liberal anymore. That’s why I call them liberal. But, but, uh, whatever you are, you know, most importantly, you have to have common sense because most of it’s — General, most of it’s about common sense when you get right down to it. And uh, we have a lotta people with a lotta, lotta very smart people, but they have to have common sense.

And we’ve liberated our troops from divisive and demeaning political trainings. There will be no more critical race theory or transgender for everybody forced onto our brave men and women in uniform or on anybody else for that matter in this country. And we will not have men playing in women’s sports if that’s okay.

I mean, I wouldn’t wanna have to tackle as an example Bryson as a man, but I don’t think a lotta women wanna tackle him. I don’t think so. How crazy is it, men playing in women’s sports? How crazy is it? So ridiculous. So demeaning. So demeaning to women. And it’s over. That’s over. We’ve ended it. And promotions and appointments will not be based on politics or identity.

They’ll be based on merit. We won that case in the Supreme Court of the United States. We’re allowed to go back to a system of merit. We’re a merit-based country again. Today, morale in the armed forces is soaring to the highest levels in many decades after years of recruiting shortfalls. And we had years and years of recruiting shortfalls, and just last year was the worst of all, the last year of the Biden administration.

We couldn’t get anybody to join our military. We couldn’t get anybody to join our police or firefighters. We couldn’t get anybody to join anything. And right now, just less than a year later, we just set a brand new peacetime recruiting record. The most, most people joined. And we are brimming — In fact, be careful.

There’s somebody gonna try and take your job. Be careful. You better be good. We are brimming with confidence and we’re brimming with people. We had the most, best recruiting month that we’ve had in memory. Nobody remembers anything like it. And that’s all because they have spirit now. They have spirit. They have a spirit for our country.

And now everybody wants to be doing what you’re doing. Think of that. So, it’s really a great honor, I will say. And I’m pleased to report that by next week, the army is expected to surpass its recruiting targets for the entire year. Something that hasn’t happened in 28 years where we’ve had that. So that’s pretty good.

And it’s nice to know that you’re doing something that everybody wants to do. Isn’t it really nice? Wasn’t — I hated to hear that. During the campaign, I was hearing that, the, you couldn’t get people to enlist. But now we’re getting people, and it’s sad because we’re telling so many people, “I’m sorry, we can’t do it.” My administration is doing everything possible to forge the most powerful military ever built.

But ultimately, the task of keeping America strong and safe in the years ahead is going to belong to you. Among you are the lieutenants, majors, colonels, and generals who’ll lead the army for the next 10, 20, 30, and even 40 years. So as commander-in-chief, let me offer a few words of advice as you begin your army careers.

And I thought I’d do this, and I can make this to a civilian audience or to a military audience. It’s pretty much the same. And, uh, I did this recently at uh, Ohio State, and they really liked it. I gave them a little advice as to what I see for what you wanna do and some tips. And first of all, and you’ve already done it different from civilians.

They’re making their decision right now. You’ve already made your decision. I love your decision. You have to do what you love. You have to do what you love. If you don’t love it, you’ll never be successful at it. And you’ve done this, and you really, many of you in the audience, many of you that are graduating, uh, you come from military backgrounds or you love the military, it’s what you want to do, it’s what you want to talk about.

One thing I see about people that love the military, that’s all they want to talk about. I’ll be out to dinner, and generals if they, if they love their job, usually the only good ones are the ones that want to talk about it all the time. But if they talk, that’s what they want to talk about. I rarely, really very rarely see somebody who’s successful that doesn’t love what he or she does.

You have to love what you do. In your case, the military is what you chose. And I’ll tell you what; you cannot go wrong. You’re gonna see it too. You’re gonna love it more and more with time. You know, I work all the time. That’s all I do is I work, whether it’s politically. Or before that, I did — I was a very good businessman in case you haven’t heard, really good.

But I was good ’cause I loved it, I loved it. I learned from my father a little bit of — My father was a happy guy and all he did was work. He’d work Saturdays, Sundays. He’d work all the time. And he was a happy guy. He just loved life. And I learned that. I say, “You know, it makes him happy.” I’ve seen other people that never work and they’re not happy.

But you gotta love it, otherwise you won’t be successful. In the army, there are a lot of different paths you can take, so follow your instincts and make sure that you take the path that you love, that you’re doing something that you love within your military. You will be happier and the army will be far stronger for it. Second is to think big.

Always think big. If you’re going to do something, you might as well think big, do it big because it’s just as tough, and sometimes it’s a lot easier thinking big than doing a small task that’s more difficult. One of your greatest graduates, General Eisenhower used to say, “Whenever I run into a problem that I can’t solve, I always like to make it bigger to solve it and solve more of it.” If you go into solve a problem, and it might as well be a big problem as opposed to a small problem that lots of people can take advantage of and solve.

So you can achieve something really amazing. Think big. Third though, you gotta do this. Uh, brainpower you have to have, potential you have to have, but to be really successful, you’re always going to have to work hard. An example is a great athlete, Gary Player. Great golfer. He wasn’t as big as the other men that were playing against him; great, big, strong guys.

Gary was a smaller guy. I don’t want to say too small. He is a friend of mine. He gets a little angry at people because he hits the ball just as far. He said, “I hit the ball further than them. Why am I small?” But he worked very, very hard. He was always doing exercise, he was always — He was well ahead of his time.

He never stopped. He won 168 golf tournaments. He won 18 majors, nine regular, and nine on the senior tour. 18 with 168. That’s the most tournaments, internationally the most tournaments anybody’s ever won. But he made a statement years ago, and I heard it, I heard it. He’s the first one. I think I’ve heard it a couple of times since, but he was the first.

He said, “It’s funny, the harder I work, the luckier I get.” And think of that, the harder I work, the luckier I get. And he worked hard, and you’re working hard, and the harder you work, the luckier you’re gonna get. Fourth is don’t lose your momentum. Momentum’s an amazing thing. Keep it going. I tell a story sometimes about a man who was a great, great real estate man.

He was a man who was admired for real estate all over the world, actually, but all over the country. He built Levittowns. He started as a man who built one house, then he built two, then he built five, then he built 20, then he built 1,000, then he built 2,000 and 3,000 a year. And he got very big, very big.

He was great at what he did. You see them all over the country still, Levittowns, so a long time ago. But he was, uh, the first of the really, really big home builders. And he became very rich, became a very rich man, and then he decided to sell. He was offered a lot of money by a big conglomerate, Gulf and Western, big conglomerate.

They didn’t do real estate, they didn’t know anything about it, but they saw the money he was making; they wanted to take it to a public company. And they gave him a lot of money, tremendous amount of money. More money than he ever thought he’d get. And he sold this company and he had nothing to do. He ended up getting a divorce, found a new wife.

Could you say a trophy wife? I guess we can say a trophy wife. It didn’t work out too well. But it doesn’t — And that doesn’t work out too well, I must tell you. A lot of trophy wives doesn’t work out, but it made him happy for a little while at least. But he found a new wife. He sold his little boat and he got a big yacht.

He had one of the biggest yachts anywhere in the world. He moved for a time to Monte Carlo and he led the good life. And time went by and he got bored. And 15 years later, the company that he sold to called him and they said, “The housing business is not for us.” You have to understand, when Bill Levitt was hot, when he had momentum, he’d go to the job sites every night.

He’d pick up every loose nail, he’d pick up every scrap of wood. If there was a bolt or a screw laying on the ground, he’d pick it up and he’d use it the next day and putting together a house. But now he was spoiled and he was rich, he was really rich. And they called and they said, “This isn’t for us, this business.

We need to do other things. Would you like to buy it back? We’ll sell it back to you cheap.” And they did. He bought it, he bought it. He thought he made a great deal and he was all excited. But it was 15 years later, he lost a lot of momentum. Remember the word momentum, and he lost everything, it just didn’t work, he lost everything.

And I was sitting at a party on Fifth Avenue one night a long time ago, and you had the biggest people in New York, the biggest people in the country, all in that party, and they were all saluting each other, how great they were, they were all telling each other, “I’m greater than you.” It gets to be really, gives you a headache sometimes, but they had all these people telling their own stories about how fantastic.

A cocktail party, and I looked over, and I was doing well, I was, I don’t know, I was invited to the party, so I had to be doing well. I was very, very young, but I made a name in real estate. And I looked over, and at the party sitting in a corner all by himself, nobody was talking to him, was Mr. Levitt.

He had just gone bankrupt, lost everything, he had lost everything, his home, everything. And I went over and talked to him because he was in the real estate business and I loved real estate, and I said, “Hello, Mr. Levitt, how are you?” He said, “Hello, Donald, it’s nice to meet you.” He knew me from being in the business.

I said, “Uh, so how’s it going?” He goes, “Not well. It’s really not going well, as you’ve probably read, it’s been a very, very tough period for me, son.” And I said, “So what happened? it’s just, anything you can do?” He goes, “No, there’s not a thing I can do.” He said, I’ll never forget, he said, “I’ve lost my momentum, I just didn’t have it. I used to have it but I lost my momentum.” So it’s a story I tell, and you have to know when you have the momentum, but sometimes you have to also know when you’ve lost the momentum and leaving a field, sometimes leaving what you’re doing sometimes is okay, but you gotta have momentum, but you have to know if that momentum’s gone, you have to know when to say it’s time to get out.

And it’s a very sad story, I remember that story so well like it was yesterday. 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 gonna be easy for them, but they’re the ones that are gonna really do the important things, they’re the ones who are gonna 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, 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 gotta keep, you’ve gotta be at the top of it, you’ve gotta be right 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 wanna 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 am 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, uh, why he’s the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff right now.

And, uh, 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 gonna have tremendous succ- — success. Six, never lose your faith in America and the American people because they’re always gonna 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 gotta fight hard, and you gotta never give up and don’t let bad people take you down. You gotta let them, you gotta 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 we’re 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 gonna like this.

Ricky’s great-grandfather served in World War I. His grandfather served in World War II, and his uncle, father and mother all graduated from West Point. Where is Ricky? In 2004, when Ricky was just a little, little tiny boy, who would think about that Ricky, a little tiny boy? His dad, Lieutenant Colonel Michael McMahon, made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation in Afghanistan.

Today, Lieutenant Colonel 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 you’re 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. It 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, uh, he’s a man that couldn’t be, and he is a man that couldn’t be more proud. And I want to just, uh, I just love that story. And everybody’s ring, they’re gonna remember you, they’re gonna remember your family, and most importantly, you’re gonna 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. A handsome guy. They’re all good-looking here. I don’t know what’s going on. Uh, whole crowd is beautiful. Thank you very much.

(Ricky McMahon speaks)

These are good-looking people, I’ll tell you General, what’s going on over [Inaudible]? Look like all a bunch of male models, I can’t stand it. (laughs) 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 Ardennes 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 US Military Academy at West Point, one of the great enabled 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 — The 8th, they said, “Sir, we’re celebrating the victory today of World War II.” And I said, “Wow, that’s nice.” Then I’d call another one, unrelated. “Sir, we’re celebrating the victory of World War II.” Then I called up President of France on something also unrelated.

He said, “Sir, we’re celebrating our victory over World War II.” I said, “Well, whoa. What have we here?” We help them a lot. And I- 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. They had 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, we’re 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 want to 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 gonna 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 ground down, but they were celebrating victory. No, we’re gonna 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 gonna be successful because you’ll go through things that will be bad.

You’re gonna have great moments, you’re gonna 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 wanna 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?

I- I said that to- that to get you lots of victories. So, we’re gonna keep winning. This country is gonna 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.”

The post Transcript of Trump’s 2025 Speech at West Point Commencement first appeared on SJO Daily.

The following is a transcript from President Donld Trump’s May 26, 2025 Memorial Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery.

“Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Very special place and a very special day.

Thank you to Vice President Vance, doing a terrific job. Thanks also to a man who has devoted his life to service members and veterans, Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, who’s doing really well. He went through a lot, didn’t he? But he’s doing really well. He’s a tough cookie. That’s what we want. He’s a tough cookie. And we’re grateful to be joined as well by Chairman Kaine, terrific military person. Members of the Cabinet, members of Congress, members of the United States Armed Forces, veterans, and many other distinguished guests. We gather today to honor the incredible service members who rest in glory in this cemetery and burial grounds around the world, and in 1000 lonely places known only to God.

In every Hour of peril, in every moment of crisis, American warriors have left behind the blessings of home and family to answer their nation’s call. They’ve offered all that they had within them and given their last breaths to each and every one of us that we might live safe and breathe free.  This morning, we pay tribute to their immortal deeds. 

We share in the sorrow of their beloved families. And as one nation, we give thanks for the ultimate gift they have so selflessly given to all of us. These warriors, and that’s what they are, is great, great warriors, picked up their mantle of duty and service, knowing that to live for others meant always that they might die for others. 

They knew that. They asked nothing for it, they gave everything, and we owe them everything and much, much more. Each of the service members who have made the supreme sacrifice for our nation has also left an unfillable void and an unbreakable silence in the lives of all who love them. For the families of the fallen, you feel the absence of your heroes every day. 

These are great families, these are wonderful families. An the familiar laugh no longer heard, the empty space at Sunday dinner, or the want of a hug or a pat on the back that will never come again. Every Gold Star family fights a battle long after the victory is won, and today we lift you up and we hold you high. 

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for giving America the brightest light in your llives. It’s what you’ve done. We will never ever forget our fallen heroes, and we will never forget our debt to you. This Memorial day is especially significant as we commemorate 250 years since the first American patriots fell on the field of battle.

Two and a half centuries ago at Lexington Green, Concord Bridge, Bunker Hill, brave Minute Men and humble farm boys became the first to give their lives for a nation that did not yet have a name. With their deaths, men like John Brown, 23 Samuel Hadley, 28, and Abner Hausman, 21 ignited the flame of liberty that now lights the inspires everybody and the entire world. 

Those young men could never have known what their sacrifice would mean to us, but we certainly know what we owe to them. Their valor gave us the freest, greatest, and most noble republic ever to exist on the face of the earth, a republic that I am fixing after a long and hard four years. That was a hard four years we went through. 

Who would let that happen? People pouring through our borders, unchecked, people doing things that are indescribable and not for today to discuss. But the republic that is now doing so very well, we’re doing so very well right now. Considering the circumstances, and we’ll do record-setting better with time. 

We will do better than we’ve ever done as a nation, better than ever before. I promise you that. In every generation since, at Trenton and Yorktown, at Vicksburg and Shiloh, and in far away places with names like Chateau-Thierry, Anzio Iwo Jima, Khe Sanh, Kandahar. A few, really, just a few chosen names, and these are names that have become so important on the altar of freedom. 

They plunged into the crucible of battle, stormed into the fires of hell, charged into the valley of death, and rose into the arms of angels. The sacrifice that they made was not merely for a single battle, a long-ago victory, or a fleeting triumph decades or centuries past. Their sacrifice was for today, tomorrow, and every morning thereafter. 

Every child that lives in peace, every home that is filled with joy and love, every day, the republic stands is only possible because of those who did what had to be done when duty called, and the cost was everything to them and to their families. Our debt to them is eternal, and it does not diminish with time. 

It only grows and grows and grows with each passing year. The greatest monument to their courage is not carved in marble or cast in bronze. It’s all around us, an American nation, 325 million strong, which will soon be greater than it has ever been before. It will be. And so today, we uphold the memory of our heroes, as people have done since ancient times, by telling their stories and exalting their names.

Senior Master Sergeant Elroy Harworth was a young, beautiful man from Earhart, Minnesota. When he enlisted in the Air Force and was sent to Vietnam. 59 years ago this very week, Ellroy and his crewmates climbed into the dark skies over Da Nang on a classified mission known as Operation Carolina Moon. Their aim was to blow up a key enemy bridge. 

And while other crews had tried and failed, they were determined to try and get it done in face of extreme danger, and they knew how bad it was. As their C-130 closed in on its target and Elroy jockeyed his 5000 pounds of explosives into position, the aircraft came under unbelievably intense fire. They had never seen anything like it. Try as they might, they were hit as the plane swung low, and they went down deep in enemy territory. 

Elroy was just 24 years old when he gave his life for America, leaving behind a beautiful young wife who was seven months pregnant. That meant Elroy would never know the joy of meeting his son Troy, or seeing him grow, and he would never have the pride to watch his son follow in his father’s footsteps and serve two decades in the US Army.

Sergeant First Class, Troy Harworth is with us Today, joined by his wife Sonya, and their son John, the grandson Elroy never got to hold. Thank you, Troy and thank you John, and above all, thank you Elroy. Thank you very much. Please stand up. Thank you. Wherever you may be. Thank you very much. Great family.

Corporal Ryan McGee of Fredericksburg, Virginia, knew from the time he saw the towers fall on 9/11,  that he wanted to be an Army Ranger. He was an American guy, all American. He was a tough guy. He was the top of everything in high school. He was captain of the football team and was voted friendliest and most charming by his peers.

Ryan joined the Army soon after graduation and after three tours in Afghanistan, he deployed to Iraq. He and his unit were tasked with hunting down a weapon facilitator and a suicide bomber cell near Baghdad, a vicious, vicious cell killing many, many people. 16 years ago this month, they engaged the enemy in a firefight, and Ryan was mortally wounded. 

He gave his life at 21 years old, and today he rests until the end of time in the famed section 60 here at Arlington, where we have buried our honored dead from the war on terror. We are joined today by Ryan’s mom, Sherrie. And Sherrie, all of America shares in your grief, and more importantly, we share in your pride and your wonderful son. 

And thank you so much for being here, Sherrie. Where is Sherrie? Thank you, Sherrie.

Thank you very much on behalf of everyone. This crowd is so big, she’s hard to find. Once I saw her, she really stands out. Thank you, Sherrie, thank you very much. 

Senior Chief Petty Officer Shannon Kent, grew up in Pine Plains, New York, before enlisting in the Navy in 2003, and she quickly became one of the rising stars. She was an absolute winner. As a linguist, translator, and cryptologic technician. Shannon worked alongside Elite Special

Force units like Delta Force and Navy SEALs to help them capture and kill terrorists. She was among the first women ever to do it, and she did it better than anyone. In January 2019, Shannon was on her fifth combat deployment, embedded with a team hunting ISIS terrorists through the streets of Syria, when a suicide bomber detonated his weapon, killing Senior Chief Kent and three other wonderful, beautiful Americans.

She left behind her husband Joe and their two sons, three-year-old Colt and 18-month-old baby, Josh. Today, Shannon rests in peace on these grounds alongside her comrades. To her boys, Colt and Josh, who are here this morning now, age nine and seven, let me say your mom was a hero, and her love, her strength, and her spirit are always with us and always be with you. 

She loved her boys. To Joe the boys, Shannon’s parents, Mary and Steven, and her sister, Mariah, Shannon’s name will live forever in the Chronicles of true American patriots. I just want to thank you, and thank you so much for being here in honor of your magnificent family member. Stories like Shannon’s, Ryan’s and Elroy, remind us of the real meaning of the day. And I want to just say, please stand up wherever you may be, the boys. 

I want to see those boys. Where are you? Yeah, good-looking guys. Thank you very much for being here. All of you. Thank you so much. We should never forget, even for a moment, that freedom is a gift of the highest cost, and peace is one at the most precious price. These extraordinary American heroes and their immense and ultimate sacrifices, they offer only the faintest glimpse at the infinite grace we have received from all who laid down their lives for America over the past 250 years. 

We’re going to have a big, big celebration, as you know, 250 years. In some ways, I’m glad I missed that second term where it was because I wouldn’t be your president for that. Most important of all, in addition, we have the World Cup, and we have the Olympics. Can you imagine? I missed that four years, and now look what I have, I have everything. 

Amazing the way things work out. God did that. I believe that too. God did it. 

You know, I got the World Cup and I got the Olympics. The 250 years was not mine, I’d like to take credit. But I got the Olympics, I got the World Cup when I was president, and I said, boy, it’s too bad I won’t be president then, and look what happened. 

I, it turned out, and we’re going to have a great time. We’re going to have a great celebration. But most important of all is the 250th anniversary that blows everything away, including the World Cup and including the Olympics, as far as I’m concerned. In any corner of the cemetery, at any resting place for our war dead, anywhere on Earth, you’ll find untold stories of equal hero, heroism and heartbreak, unmatched patriotism and devotion, and acts of selflessness and courage.

So enormous they defy comprehension. Most people can’t even imagine it. Great poets have written that it’s love which moves the sun and the stars. But here on the sacred soil right where we are, we’re reminded that it’s love which moves the course of history and moves it always toward freedom. Always. From Bunker Hill to Bastogne to Cantonese to Coral Sea, from Gettysburg to Guadalcanal and Concord to Kabul, America’s best and America’s bravest have fought, bled and died so that we could pick up the torch of liberty, raise it high, high, high, and carry it onward to places they could never have dreamed of before.

Today, we honor their memory. We remember their gallantry. Review, just revere, in the highest sense we just revere their incredible legacy. We salute them in their eternal and everlasting

Glory. And we continue our relentless pursuit of America’s destiny as we make our nation stronger, prouder, freer, and greater than ever before. 

May God bless our fallen heroes. May God bless our Gold Star families, and may God bless the United States of America. Thank you very much, everybody. Great honor. Thank you.”

The post Transcript of Trump’s Memorial Day Speech May 26, 2025 first appeared on SJO Daily.

The CBO delivers impartial, nonpartisan analyses of economic and fiscal policies to inform and guide the federal budget process in the U.S. Congress. 

The CBO’s distributional analysis shows households in the lowest income decile (earning under $32,200 annually) would see resources shrink by 2% in 2027 and 4% by 2033, driven by $698 billion in Medicaid cuts and $267 billion in reduced Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) spending. 8.6 million Americans could lose Medicaid coverage, and approximately 3 million people could lose SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) benefits each month.

On the other side of the financial spectrum, the top 10% of earners (averaging $444,600 annually) would gain 4% in 2027 and 2% in 2033, primarily from permanent extensions of Trump-era tax cuts, including a $2.1 trillion extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimates 68% of tax cuts would flow to the wealthiest fifth of Americans by 2027, with the top 1% receiving an average $255,670  annual windfall. This figure likely understates the benefit to the wealthy, as it does not account for additional estate tax cuts for multimillion-dollar estates. 

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) warned that the bill’s debt increase (including interest) could worsen recent credit downgrades, like Moody’s announcement that the United States lost its perfect Aaa score, moving it down to Aa1. Temporary provisions, like tip and overtime tax exemptions, artificially lower the 10-year cost; making them permanent would add $5.1 trillion to deficits.

Medicare faces automatic 4% cuts annually starting in 2026, totaling $500 billion by 2034 under PAYGO (Pay-As-You-Go) rules triggered by the bill. 

Investors expressed concerns over the U.S. debt trajectory, with the national debt already exceeding $36.2 trillion. 

As of May 2025, the U.S. national debt stands at $36.21 trillion, with debt held by the public reaching $28.9 trillion. The Treasury Department began employing extraordinary measures on January 21, 2025, after the debt ceiling was reinstated under the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) of 2023. Secretary Scott Bessent projects these measures will be exhausted by August 2025, urging Congress to act by mid-July to avoid default.

The national debt increased by $8.18 trillion during Donald Trump’s 2016-2020 presidency, the largest single-term deficit in American history. 

The post Congressional Budget Office Projects $3.8 Trillion Deficit Surge from Sweeping “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” first appeared on SJO Daily.

Charleston had served as a key port city for the Confederacy and was home to several makeshift prisons for captured Union troops.

In the days leading up to the event, Black residents of Charleston exhumed the bodies from the mass grave. They reburied the soldiers in orderly rows, landscaped the grounds, and built a fence with an archway inscribed “Martyrs of the Race Course”. 

The commemoration began with a parade led by 3,000 Black schoolchildren carrying flowers and singing “John Brown’s Body,” followed by adults, aid societies, and regiments of Black Union soldiers, including the famed 54th Massachusetts. Black ministers led prayers and hymns. Union officers and missionaries delivered speeches. The graves were decorated with flowers.

The movement gained national momentum in 1868 when General John A. Logan, leader of the Grand Army of the Republic (an organization of Union veterans), issued a proclamation designating May 30 as “Decoration Day.” This day was set aside for Americans to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers and remember their sacrifice. The first large observance was held that year at Arlington National Cemetery. 

Initially, Decoration Day was specifically intended to honor those who died in the Civil War. As the United States entered new wars—from World War I and World War II to Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan—the meaning of Decoration Day expanded to honor American military personnel who died in all conflicts, not just the Civil War.

In the decades that followed, the name “Memorial Day” gradually came into more common use, particularly after World War II.

In 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, moving Memorial Day from its traditional May 30 observance to the last Monday in May. The move was intended to create a three-day weekend for federal employees and encourage national participation. The law went into effect in 1971, the same year Memorial Day was declared an official federal holiday.

The post Charleston’s Forgotten Tribute: How Freed Slaves Sparked America’s Memorial Day Tradition first appeared on SJO Daily.

FRTs are aftermarket parts designed to increase the rate of fire of semiautomatic rifles by forcibly resetting the trigger after each shot. While they allow for rapid firing, each shot still requires a separate trigger pull, which was the crux of Rare Breed’s legal defense. The ATF had argued that FRTs effectively turned semiautomatic rifles into machine guns, but a series of court decisions, including a Supreme Court ruling on bump stocks, undermined this interpretation.

The settlement is widely seen as a victory for Second Amendment advocates and the firearms industry. It not only lifts the ban on FRT-15 triggers but also sets a precedent that could affect how other innovative aftermarket gun parts are regulated in the future.

Key Outcomes for Aftermarket Trigger Owners and Manufacturers

• The DOJ will no longer enforce federal machine gun laws against the possession or transfer of FRTs, meaning these triggers are no longer classified as machine guns under federal law.
• The government has agreed to return FRTs previously seized from Rare Breed and from individuals who surrendered them, provided that owners request their property back by September 30, 2025, following ATF instructions.
• Rare Breed Triggers is allowed to continue manufacturing and selling FRTs for rifles, but has agreed not to develop or market such devices for handguns.

The settlement includes a clause preventing the government from reclassifying these triggers as illegal machine guns in the future, even if laws change, effectively shielding FRTs from future reinterpretation under current statutes. The decision is expected to prompt other manufacturers to enter the market with their own FRT designs, as the legal risk has been removed.

The post DOJ Settlement with Rare Breed: What It Means for Aftermarket Triggers first appeared on SJO Daily.

On May 9, Mayor Baraka and three members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation, including Rep. McIver, arrived at Delaney Hall to conduct what they described as an oversight visit, a right afforded to members of Congress under federal law.

Members of Congress have explicit legal authority to visit Department of Homeland Security (DHS) facilities, including ICE detention centers, for oversight purposes. 

The law states that “none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available to the Department of Homeland Security… may be used to prevent… a Member of Congress… from entering, for the purpose of conducting oversight, any facility operated by or for the Department of Homeland Security used to detain or otherwise house aliens”.

Members of Congress do not need to provide advance notice for such visits, though staff members must give at least 24 hours’ notice.

ICE guidelines require all visitors to comply with facility rules and security procedures, including identification checks and searches. While members of Congress have broad access rights, they are still expected to follow instructions from ICE personnel on site to ensure safety and order.

The group was reportedly denied entry by federal guards, leading to a heated exchange that escalated into a physical altercation. Baraka was arrested for trespassing, while McIver and other lawmakers accused ICE agents of using unnecessary force.

While Habba said the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s office is dropping the charges against Baraka, she mentioned Congressional oversight could be forthcoming.

Rep. McIver and her attorney, Paul Fishman, called the charges “purely political” and “spectacularly inappropriate,” asserting that McIver was fulfilling her lawful oversight duties and that ICE agents escalated what should have been a routine inspection into a confrontation. McIver maintains that she and her colleagues were assaulted by ICE agents and that the prosecution is an attempt to deter legitimate congressional oversight.

In her official statement, U.S. Attorney Habba said the decision to drop the charge against Baraka was made “for the sake of moving forward,” inviting the mayor to tour Delaney Hall and vowing to personally accompany him.

Several senior House Democrats released a joint statement defending McIver, arguing that targeting her for oversight activities sets a dangerous precedent and undermines the constitutional role of Congress. They cited Section 527 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024, which reinforces the right of members to conduct unannounced oversight visits.

The Department of Homeland Security, however, contends that the lawmakers “stormed” the facility and failed to comply with established procedures, insisting that all visitors must follow facility rules regardless of their official status.

Video evidence shows Rep. McIver crossing through a gate at the facility. The footage depicts McIver being spun around in a crowd moving forward along a fence while Baraka was being detained. Her elbows and arms make contact with a federal officer. No injuries were reported as a result of the altercation.

The post U.S. Attorney Drops Trespass Charge Against Newark Mayor, Files Assault Charge Against Congresswoman After ICE Facility Clash first appeared on SJO Daily.

In a brief order, the Court stayed a March 31 ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California that had blocked DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s move to rescind TPS protections for Venezuelans. The stay will remain in effect while the government appeals to the Ninth Circuit and, if necessary, until the Supreme Court decides whether to take up the case itself.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, saying she would have denied the government’s request for a stay.

The decision immediately affects roughly 350,000 Venezuelans who received TPS in 2023, leaving them at risk of deportation and unable to work legally in the United States. These individuals had been granted protection due to ongoing instability and humanitarian crises in Venezuela. The ruling does not affect about 250,000 Venezuelans who received TPS in 2021, nor does it impact the 500,000 Haitian TPS holders whose status is set to expire later this year under a separate policy.

TPS provides temporary legal status and work permits to nationals of countries experiencing armed conflict, environmental disaster, or other extraordinary conditions. The Biden administration had extended TPS for Venezuelans through October 2026, but Secretary Noem, appointed under the Trump administration, moved to revoke the extension in February, arguing the law allowed for early termination. Plaintiffs, including the National TPS Alliance and several individuals, sued, arguing that the move was unlawful and motivated by racial bias.

A federal judge initially sided with the plaintiffs, finding that the early termination likely violated federal law and appeared to be motivated by discriminatory intent. That ruling is now on hold due to the Supreme Court’s intervention.

The stay will remain in effect until the Ninth Circuit rules on the government’s appeal and, if the Supreme Court agrees to review the case, until it issues a final judgment. If the Supreme Court declines to hear the case, the stay will end automatically, and the district court’s order could be reinstated.

The post Supreme Court Allows DHS to End Temporary Protected Status for 350,000 Venezuelans first appeared on SJO Daily.

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon explained during a Thursday earnings call that while the company has worked to keep prices low, the magnitude of the tariffs, even at recently reduced levels, makes it impossible for Walmart to absorb all the additional costs.

“We will do our best to keep our prices as low as possible. But given the magnitude of the tariffs, even at the reduced levels announced this week, we aren’t able to absorb all the pressure given the reality of narrow retail margins,” McMillon said.

The price hikes are expected to impact a broad array of items, including groceries, school supplies, home goods, and toys.

Former President Trump, who has consistently claimed that the burden of tariffs falls on exporting countries rather than American consumers, responded sharply to Walmart’s announcement. Taking to his Truth Social platform on Saturday, he criticized the company, writing:

“Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain,” Trump posted. “Walmart made BILLIONS OF DOLLARS last year, far more than expected. Between Walmart and China they should, as is said, “EAT THE TARIFFS,” and not charge valued customers ANYTHING. I’ll be watching, and so will your customers!!!”

Throughout his presidency, Trump repeatedly claimed that tariffs on imported goods, especially from China, would be paid by foreign countries and would not affect American consumers. However, his recent Truth Social post, in which he tells Walmart to absorb the costs of tariffs rather than raise prices, directly contradicts this narrative. By insisting that Walmart should “eat the tariffs,” Trump is acknowledging that these costs are indeed hitting U.S. companies and, if not absorbed by them, will be passed on to shoppers through higher prices.

The statement that Walmart made record profits is also nuanced and not entirely accurate. Walmart’s net income for fiscal 2025 is reported as $$19.4 billion, and for fiscal 2024 as $16.3 billion. Contrary to Trump’s claim that Walmart made “far more than expected,” financial analysts and reporting indicate that Walmart’s results were largely in line with, or only modestly above, expectations.

Walmart operates on very slim net profit margins, typically around 2.5% to 3%. For every dollar of revenue, only a few cents translate to net profit, which is standard for the grocery and discount retail sector.

Trump has continuously assured the public that his economic policies, including tariffs, will ultimately benefit U.S. manufacturing and jobs. The evidence indicates that Trump’s tariffs during his first term did not broadly benefit U.S. manufacturing and jobs.

According to Brookings, some specific industries, such as steel and washing machines, saw modest job gains due to tariff protection, these benefits were limited and often outweighed by broader economic costs. For example, tariffs on steel led to several thousand new jobs in that sector, and washing machine tariffs created about 1,800 jobs at U.S. factories. However, these gains came at a high cost to consumers, with studies estimating that American consumers paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in higher prices for each job created.

A 2021 study commissioned by the U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC) found Trump’s tariffs resulted in net job losses. While a small number of jobs were created in protected industries, far more were lost in sectors that rely on imported inputs or were affected by retaliatory tariffs from other countries. The study found that Trump’s trade policies cost the U.S. economy about 245,000 jobs.

Walmart’s announcement is expected to set a precedent for other major retailers, many of whom may follow suit with their own price increases. If a low-price leader like Walmart is raising prices, it signals broader cost pressures across the retail sector.

The post Walmart Announces Price Increases Citing Trump Tariffs; Trump Responds on Truth Social first appeared on SJO Daily.