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President Donald Trump told college graduates they’d be embarking on their careers in the “golden age of America” and could be the “greatest generation” when he delivered the commencement address at the University of Alabama Thursday.
And it was all thanks to him and his policies.
As with a rally in Michigan on Tuesday to mark his first 100 days in office, Trump returned to the kind of long, rambling stories and jumbled points of his campaign days. In both cases, the crowd loved it.
The president walked onto the stage at the Coleman Coliseum to cheers of “USA! USA!” from the nearly 3,000 students and their families in attendance.
Trump won Alabama with 64 percent of the vote in the 2024 election. The president used his address to pat himself on the back and tout his own administration amid efforts he claimed would “make America great again.” The president connected with Alabama voters, he said, because: “We believe that the men and women who built this country are heroes, and that America's destiny is to be the single greatest nation on the face of the earth.”
He added: “We believe in freedom and family, God and country, we cherish our Constitution, we revere our Bible, and we salute our great American flag.”
Trump used the speech to turn to his usual political talking points and grievances. He fiercely defended his administration's actions on immigration issues, and attacked transgender Americans as he spoke at the school known for its football success and recent winnings in college basketball.
At one point, Trump mocked a weightlifting competition in which a transgender girl beat a competitor identified as female at the birth girl by breaking a record by an astonishing 119 pounds. He fictitiously acted out the girl's reaction - even though he said it would draw the ire of his wife, Melania.
"Should I imitate him? My wife gets very upset when I do this. She says, 'Darling, it's not presidential,' I say, 'Yeah, but people like it,'" Trump told the crowd.
"All right, I'm in trouble when I get home, but that's OK, what the hell. I've been in lots of trouble before," he joked.
When he wasn't talking about transgender athletes, Trump used the speech to highlight his first 100 days and bash familiar foes. He told the graduating class that not only are they embarking on their careers in his self-proclaimed "golden age" of the country, but they could also become "the greatest generation" of Americans "because we're turning it around and you happen to be available."
He asked students to "give me a break for the first month" because "I had to get a little acclimated ... had to see where the enemy lies."
"The last four years were not good for our country," Trump said, adding: "We were run by people that didn't have a clue," the president said. "They didn't have a clue . . . and I'm trying to be nice when I say it that way. They allowed our beautiful USA to be laughed at, scorned and taken advantage of by everybody."
He touched on immigration matters and how he is constantly losing in court over his deportation plans and shipping people to an El Salvador mega-prison.
"Judges are interfering, supposedly based on due process," he said of immigration, referring to rulings that his administration had deported individuals without justification and illegally," Trump said.
"But how can you give due process to people who came into our country illegally? They want to give them due process. I don't know."
When he wasn't mixing in his political thoughts, Trump was dishing out advise to the new grads. The president encouraged them not to "waste your youth" by not seizing opportunities because of their age, stating, "I'd pay you a lot of money to have your age."
"I was 28 when I took my first big gamble to develop a hotel in midtown Manhattan," he said. "Go out and fight right from the beginning, from the day you leave this incredible university, go out and fight, fight tough, fight fair, but go out and fight."
English (US) ·