New London. Same Trump.
On Wednesday at noon, President Trump returned to this little Connecticut town to give the commencement address to the United States Coast Guard Academy for his second time as commander in chief.
“I’m thrilled to become the first president to ever give a second keynote address to this storied institution,” he said to a sea of young men and women in starchy crisp whites. “I am very proud of that honor.”
In fact, he is not the first president to ever give a second keynote address to this storied institution. Bill Clinton did it twice. So did George W. Bush. And Barack Obama.
The last time Mr. Trump spoke here, it was 2017. He was having a very different presidency, beset by very different crises. And yet …
“You have to put your head down and fight, fight, fight,” Mr. Trump said in 2017.
“Whatever danger comes our way, you will fight, fight, fight,” he said Wednesday.
“Look at the way I’ve been treated lately, especially by the media,” Mr. Trump said in 2017.
“The fake news, look at all of them back there,” he said Wednesday.
“I’ve accomplished a tremendous amount in a very short time as president, jobs pouring back into our country,” Mr. Trump said in 2017.
Various businesses were “all pouring back into our country right now,” he said Wednesday.
It was déjà vu on the Thames (that is seriously what the little river here is called).
Mr. Trump’s commencement address on Wednesday was mostly a mixture of jokes, high praise and written remarks about the danger and derring-do of the seafaring life the Coast Guard graduates had chosen for themselves. But, just like nine years ago, there were detours into choppy waters.
The last time he spoke here, a runaway crisis was consuming his presidency. The consequences of his decision to interfere in an F.B.I. investigation led by James B. Comey, the bureau’s director, were metastasizing. He complained that day about “the way I’ve been treated lately.” Now he was back, and a runaway crisis was consuming his presidency.
Not even two minutes into the speech, he brought it up: his war in Iran.
“Everything’s gone,” he declared. “Their navy’s gone, their air force is gone, just about everything.” (Last week, The New York Times reported on the existence of evidence showing Iran had restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites it maintains along the Strait of Hormuz).
“The only question is,” Mr. Trump continued, “do we go and finish it up, or are they going to be signing a document? Let’s see what happens.”
He kept sailing back to this topic at points throughout his 53-minute speech.
“We will not let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” he said half an hour in, “and we have great support. You wouldn’t know that by reading the fake news, but we have great support.” (This week, a New York Times/Siena poll found that most voters think he made the wrong decision in taking the country to war with Iran and feel that it has not been worth the costs.)
The president tried tailoring the war talk to interest his audience at hand. “The Coast Guard has also played an important role in Operation Epic Fury to ensure that the Iranian regime never obtains a nuclear weapon,” he said, going on to tell the story of a Coast Guard tactical team off the coast of Malaysia that he said had helped seize a sanctioned Iranian tanker transporting oil from Kharg Island.
In some ways it was not the ideal scenario for him to gin up a public show of support for war. There was scattered applause from time to time, but the cadets mostly just played it cool.
The president got the most out of the crowd when he was being apolitical, hamming it up with the coasties as he welcomed them onstage and teased them about how attractive they were. “I hate good-looking men,” he growled, after a young man named Matthew came up to shake his hand. A cadet named Thomas walked up next. “Look at the muscles on this guy,” Mr. Trump observed.
He said he enjoyed examining these fine specimens up close: “I like to see what these guys are like!”
He next asked a woman named Savannah up to the stage. “If I didn’t invite her up,” he said, “they’d accuse me of discrimination.” (His administration fired the commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, Adm. Linda L. Fagan, within 24 hours of his inauguration; she was the first female officer to lead a branch of the American armed forces.) He invited one more woman up to the stage after Savannah.
He loved speaking at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy so much, he said, “We’re going to have to try it maybe a third time, too — to keep that record intact.”
Kitty Bennett contributed research.
Shawn McCreesh is a White House reporter for The Times covering the Trump administration.
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