Trump to speak at West Point commencement amid Army recruitment boom
President Trump will deliver a spring commencement address to graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point on May 24.
The speech comes amid record recruitment numbers and the White House’s DEI crackdown at military institutions.
President Donald J. Trump will deliver the spring commencement address to graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point on May 24.
The address comes as the military faces record high recruitment numbers, dubbed the “Trump Bump” by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The recruitment boom boasts “the largest number of recruits in the history of our country,” President Trump stated in a May 1 speech.
The Army is facing a 15-year recruitment high and enlisted 85% of its target for fiscal year 2025, which ends Sept. 30, according to Military.com.
“The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines … Coast Guard, all of them, they’re full and we have a waiting list, and we’re actually picking the ones we want,” the president stated.
Campus Reform is reporting a shift in enthusiasm and patriotism among Generation Z that is driving the military recruitment surge.
“They have spirit, they love our country again and we’re making our country great,” President Trump remarked about military recruits.
The shift in sentiment among young people comes amid the White House’s crackdown on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) within military institutions.
The Pentagon announced Friday that military service academies will eliminate race-based admissions practices in accordance with President Trump’s executive order rolling back DEI within the military.
“The department owes it to our nation, our service members, and the Americans applying to the [military service academies] to ensure admissions to these prestigious institutions are based exclusively on merit,” a May 9 memo from the Defense Department states.
Admissions will be race-blind, sex-blind, and will “rank-order candidates by merit-based scores” for the 2026 admissions cycle and beyond.
“This ensures only the most qualified candidates are admitted, trained, and ultimately commissioned to lead the finest fighting force in history. Selecting anyone but the best erodes lethality, our war fighting readiness, and undercuts the culture of excellence within our Armed Forces,” the memo states.
Campus Reform previously reported directives from the Defense Department to end DEI and gender ideology curriculum at military institutions.
These directives prompted the department to create a DEI task force, the Coast Guard Academy to close its DEI office, and the Air Force Academy and West Point to remove “Diversity and Inclusion Studies” minors.
[RELATED: Young Americans Are Joining the Military Again]
Earlier this month, Campus Reform reported that President Trump delivered a commencement address to University of Alabama graduates.
The president’s West Point speech will be his ninth commencement address as a sitting president; he previously delivered an address to West Point graduates in 2020.
