The ceremony is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. Trump will be in attendance to deliver his speech in person.
“We are honored to host the Commander-in-Chief as we celebrate the many accomplishments of our graduating class,” Lt. Gen. Darryl Williams said in an April news release announcing the president’s speech.
The graduation ceremony was initially scheduled to take place earlier this spring but was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. After Vice President Mike Pence, who addressed West Point graduates last year, delivered a speech to the Air Force Academy’s graduating class in April, Trump announced his intention to speak at this year’s West Point graduation. According to The New York Times, the academy had not yet finalized its graduation plans before the president made his announcement.
The event is expected to bring an estimated 1,000 cadets back to West Point. The ceremony comes as New York is emerging from months spent in lockdown due to the pandemic and states across the country are grappling with how to allow their residents to reenter society as safely as possible.
According to West Point, no guests will be allowed to attend Saturday’s graduation ceremony due to continued concerns about the virus. “We have determined that with current social distancing requirements, even a small contingent of guests would quickly exceed our seating capacity and was inconsistent with current public health guidance,” the academy said in its official guidelines for the ceremony.
In lieu of in-person attendance for the cadets’ families and friends, the entire ceremony will be live streamed. The academy said the link to the live stream will be added to its 2020 graduation website. The White Plains, New York-based paper The Journal News said the ceremony will also be available to view on West Point’s YouTube channel.
Just two days before the ceremony, West Point graduates of years past published an open letter to this year’s graduating class warning cadets about practicing “blind obedience” to leaders. The letter criticized the president’s deployment of National Guard troops in response to protests that erupted across the country after 46-year-old George Floyd, a black man, died while in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25. The ensuing clashes between Trump’s administration and government leaders questioning the decision to use American troops against American protesters has left many in the military on edge.
“Politicization of the Armed Forces puts at risk the bond of trust between the American military and American society,” the letter read. “Should this trust be ruptured, the damage to the nation would be incalculable. America needs your leadership.”
