At University of Alabama, Donald Trump praises new graduates, himself

President Donald Trump Thursday congratulated more than 200 graduates at a commencement ceremony at the University of Alabama for their academic accomplishments, and himself for his first 100 days in office for his second term.

In a meandering, hour-long address that drew a nearby protest, Trump called Alabama a “winner” and urged graduates to lead successful lives.

“Today, I am also asking you to look forward to, really, something very, very bright, more promising,” Trump said. “And it is going to be even more promising tomorrow, I promise you that. You are the first graduating class of the golden age of America.”

The president also praised himself for his controversial executive orders and rehashed his grievances with his critics and the Biden administration.

“In a matter of weeks, we achieved the lowest number of illegal border crossings ever recorded,” Trump said to the applause of the crowd. “We have seen hundreds of thousands of people pouring into our country from prisons, from mental institutions, gangs, and all over the world, not just in South America.”

According to Axios, the decline in border crossings began under the Biden administration and was due in part to actions taken by the government of Mexico. Experts also say that border crossings can fluctuate. Trump’s actions have also led to the wrongful arrest of several people with legal status, including Maryland resident Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia and three U.S. citizen children under the age of 10, including one with Stage 4 cancer.

Much of the evening’s speech focused on imparting words of wisdom for the graduates using a list of virtues they should incorporate into their lives.

“In America, with drive and ambition, young people can do anything,” Trump said. The president, who became president of a real estate company his father Fred built, spoke about how he developed a property in Manhattan when he was in his 20s. Trump then praised Steve Jobs and Walt Disney for their accomplishments founding companies.

“If you are going to do something, you might as well think big because it is just as tough,” he said. “I know a lot of people, they thought small, and they are very smart. I know others who were not very smart, but they thought about the big picture.”

Throughout the address, Trump would shift quickly from advice to graduates to monologues on social issues. He repeatedly raised transgender issues, returning multiple times to what he characterized as the problem of males who transitioned into females and playing on female sports teams.

He would end his speech by heaping praise on Alabama for more than five minutes.

“You continue the legacy of Alabama legends who blazed the trails, won the games, tilled the fields, forged the steels, built the ships, and gave us the victories that built the American and changed the world.”

He praised the car racing in Talladega and highlighted the rockets developed in the state.

“This is the state that gave us nothing but victory,” Trump said. “The state with some of the greatest heroes in history, like Willie Mays, Jesse Owens, Joe Louis, your coach Nick Saban.”

Protest draws over 100 people

A protest of Trump’s appearance organized by the University of Alabama’s College Democrats drew over 100 people.

“We deserve somebody who works for the people, by the people. And right now we have someone who is working for billionaires, by billionaires,” said Kyla Chatmon, a junior political science and African American studies double major at The University of Alabama. “And I think that is just unjust. And so I came out today to show my support to all the graduates who are having to have their graduation overshadowed by an authoritarian, fascist, dictator.”

Mary Maxwell, who also attended the event, said she feels like the university might have been scared to say no to the sitting president.

“It is a red state and people are afraid of him,” she said. “They’re afraid he’ll cut their funding and he’ll try to control what’s being taught at the school. I taught at the university for 20 years and did research for 15 [years]. He’s against education. He’s against science. He’s against people knowing more than him.”

Former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, D-Alabama and Beto O’Rourke, a former Texas congressman who ran for governor and U.S. Senator in Texas, spoke at the event.

“He wants us to feel hopeless. He wants us to feel like he has all the power. And let me tell you something. In this country, in this great democracy, in this government of, by and for the people, the real power is with us,” O’Rourke said during his speech.

O’Rourke encouraged protest attendees to keep fighting against the administration’s policies during his speech as well, invoking Bloody Tuesday, an attack on civil rights protestors by police and a white mob in Tuscaloosa in 1964, and Bloody Sunday, an attack on civil rights protestors crossing Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965.

“We can overcome these challenges, because we have overcome them before against much greater odds,” he said to the crowd.

Former Senator Doug Jones said during his speech that the gathering was “not a protest, this is a movement.”

“It is movements that changed this country,” he said. “Whether it was the Civil Rights Movement, whether it was the anti-war movement, it is the movements. And guess what? It started on college campuses.”

Jones also encouraged protest participants to write to their U.S. Senators as a form of speaking up and out for what they want.

“Write your U.S. Senators, they’ll ignore it, but write them anyway! Because those things mean something. As someone who sat in the halls of the United States Senate, we tried to answer everything, even people that came in that opposed what we were doing,” Jones said.

Jones also encouraged attendees to get involved with civic engagement to fight for the change they would like to see.

“Go to your county commission, go to your city council offices. Get engaged, civic engagement at the local level is where we have to be, that’s the power. You have that power,” he said.