Whoopi Goldberg Trashes Trump’s West Point Graduation Speech: ‘Why Would You Do That?’

Amanda Bell May 27, 2025, 12:07 pm

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Whoopi Goldberg and Donald Trump — ABC / Getty Images

The View returned with a new episode on Tuesday (May 27), and the first “Hot Topic” of the day was Donald Trump‘s controversial speech to the graduates of West Point over the weekend.

“We are back from Memorial Day weekend, a time to solemnly honor our fallen soldiers. This is also graduation weekend for the next generation of U.S. armed forces, and here is how You Know Who addressed the military families at Arlington National Cemetery and West Point,” Whoopi Goldberg said to introduce the clip, which spliced together fragments of Trump’s speech, including when he talked about trophy wives, his upcoming military/birthday parade, and how he is grateful to have missed having his second term during Joe Biden‘s presidency because he gets to preside over the U.S.-hosted Olympics and other major events. “Can you imagine? I missed that four years, and now that’s what I have. I have everything,” he said.

Goldberg started out her response with a compliment for Trump’s recognition of Gold Star families — that is, the families of those service members who died in the line of duty. “It’s about time he did that,” she said. “The last time we collectively heard him talking about Gold Star families… it was not positive…. It was something that I needed to have him say.”

However, she quickly questioned why his speech sounded more like a campaign rally overall. “I think it’s the only speech he has,” Sara Haines offered. “I say that because, normally… The speech should be shaped to the audience if you’re a really good speaker. I cannot figure out where he’s talking at any one time, unless I Google where he’s at because he always hits on his favorite topics: the border, radical left, DEI, throw Biden in there about 50 times, stories about golf, real estate buddies.” Haines then asked cohost Alyssa Farah Griffin, who worked for Trump’s first administration, whether he was riffing or if this was prepared: “Are these [speeches] on paper, or is it something where he goes up there and says, ‘Welcome,’ and then just goes off script?”

“It’s both,” Griffin answered. “There’s actually a lot of work that goes into what are supposed to be scripted remarks. He’s kind of become notorious, especially in the second term and on the campaign trail, for what he calls ‘the weave,’ where he manages to hit a lot of different topics at different times.”

She then went on to offer her own critique of the speech, saying, “He doesn’t strike the right tone at these. He likes to post things on Truth Social like, ‘the suckers, the losers, the scum,’ whatever. He does this on kind of reverential days, and he’s doing it to troll us. And if there’s one thing Donald Trump really gets, it’s the media and politicians who oppose him, because they’re then going to grasp at that and be like, ‘How dare he do this on a solemn day?’ You know what I would say, veterans in America are forgotten about, except on Election Day, Memorial Day, and Veterans Day — politicians talk about them when they want their vote. They cater to them and tell them the things they’re going to do, but they don’t deliver day to day. The VA has been broken for 20 years, Obama, Trump, Biden Trump, it’s still broken. It doesn’t work. A lot of my friends are veterans and served. I worked at DOD, and they will say they feel like political pawns for politicians to use to their benefit. And I just wish people would actually listen to veterans about what they need, what they care about, not just sort of use them for election season problems.”

Joy Behar then pointed out claims that Trump previously called fallen service members “suckers” and “losers,” and pondered, “Why would they invite him to speak at West Point?” She went on to note, “Wearing the hat was a political move… He’s supposed to be not political at West Point or Arlington Cemetery, and there he is being political and rambling. Jake Tapper should do another book because he was rambling. He’s running around. I see pictures of him walking into walls.”

Ana Navarro reported being out of the country “for five blissful days” without hearing Trump speak and pointed to another clip of Trump’s speech before noting, “If Joe Biden said that, we’d be talking about his cognitive skills and cognitive decline for days.” When asked why it is that Trump’s gaffes don’t get as much attention, she guessed, “I think people are a little bit numb to it, and I think people expect this from him, so they don’t see it as a decline because I guess he’s never been incredibly eloquent to begin with,” she said. “He calls the way he speaks ‘the weave.’ I call the thing on his head the weave.”

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Griffin noted that some service members might have been disenchanted by Joe Biden and the deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan that resulted in the loss of U.S. soldiers’ lives, but Goldberg said, “Don’t you think that all those troops, the troops of color, the women who serve, who have been erased from all of these, don’t you think they feel betrayed as well?” After some discussion of the failings of the VA under multiple administrations, she noted, “The one thing that we have always had is we never had anyone disrespect that our servicemen… Joe Biden after every time he was on television said, ‘God bless our troops.'”

Navarro then pointed out that Trump and Elon Musk, head of the Department of Government Efficiency a.k.a. DOGE, has called for the elimination of as many as 80,000 jobs with the VA.

Then, Goldberg chimed back in to say, “The disrespect that I have seen over the years for the people who go out and do the jobs that we don’t do has been monumental, and most often it comes from people who don’t know better, but several people in his group do know better. Pete Hegseth knows better. He knows what it’s like to be a serviceman. Vice President Vance knows how hard it was because I’m sure one of the reasons he went there is to elevate his life. He comes from very, very poor people, and a lot of very, very poor people find the military as a place to go and change their lives. And the fact that you don’t stand up and say, ‘You can’t do this to these folks. I’ve worked with them. I know what they go through.’ Instead, we get this.”

“That’s the difference between having John Mattis as secretary of Defense and having a sycophant like Pete Hegseth as secretary of Defense. There is nobody around him left to tell him no,” Navarro answered.

“They know what it’s like,” Goldberg continued. “You know how this works. You lived this life. Why would you put down people who put their lives at risk? Why would you erase people? Why would you do that?”

“That’s the $64,000 question,” Behar answered. “Why are they all getting this MAGA lobotomy that’s going on, as someone called it? I mean, somehow the Invasion of the Body Snatchers has taken over all these people.”

The View, weekdays, 11 a.m. ET, ABC