President Donald Trump on Monday used what was intended as a solemn address honoring at America’s honored dead at the country’s most hallowed war grave to deliver a speech replete with gratuitous attacks on his predecessor and self-congratulatory talk about how God had returned him to the White House so he could preside over next year’s U.S.-hosted World Cup and the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
Trump, who spoke at the Arlington National Cemetery ampitheater following introductory remarks by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, opened his speech by speaking of the “incredible service members” who “rest in glory” at Arlington, at America’s overseas military cemeteries across the globe, and in “one thousand lonely places known only to God.”
“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,” Trump said.
But the president quickly pivoted to grouse about his predecessor and his immigration policies, telling the crowd he was “fixing” that “noble republic” after “a long and hard four years.”
“That was a hard four years we went through — who would let that happen?” he said. “People pouring through our borders, unchecked, people doing things that are indescribable.”
But Trump, apparently noticing his surroundings, added that such things were “not for today to discuss” and continued his remarks, eventually going into a recitation of the names and deeds of a few of the Americans buried there at Arlington, soldiers and Marines and sailors who died in Vietnam and Afghanistan and Syria.
He described how they’d sacrificed themselves “on the altar of freedom” and how they’d “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,” he said. “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.”
He spoke of a U.S. Navy “linguist, translator and cryptologic technician” by the name of Shannon Kent, who was one of the first women to work alongside elite special operations units such as Navy SEAL teams and the Army’s Delta Force “to help them capture and kill terrorists.”
“She was among the first women ever to do it, and she did it better than anyone,” said Trump, who described how Kent, a Senior Chief Petty Officer, had been embedded in Syria with a SEAL team who were “hunting ISIS terrorists through the streets” when she lost her life at the hands of a suicide bomber, leaving behind a husband and two sons who were in attendance at Arlington on Monday.
Turning to them, he told them their mother “was a hero” whose “love … strength and … spirit” would “always” be with them. He also told her parents and sister that Senior Chief Kent’s name would “live forever in the chronicles of true American patriots.”
“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,” he said.
But after that poignant moment, Trump returned to congratulating himself. His mention of “the past 250 years” appeared to remind him of the upcoming semiquincentennial celebration to mark the anniversary of America’s declaration of independence from Great Britain in July 1776.
“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, it’s amazing how things work out,” he said. “God did that — I believe that, too.”
