Trump offers advice to University of Alabama graduates in speech interspersed with politics

TUSCALOOSA Ala AP President Donald Trump offered several encouraging words and advice for graduating students at the University of Alabama on Thursday in a speech interspersed with impressions of transgender weightlifters accusations that judges were interfering with his agenda and attacks on his predecessor Joe Biden The Republican s jolting speech was standard fare for Trump and well-received by the crowd in deep-red Alabama which backed him in all three of his presidential runs You re the first graduating class of the golden age of America the president reported the graduates But he hurriedly launched into a campaign-style diatribe saying that the U S was being ripped off before he took office and that the last four years when he was out of power were not good for our country But don t let that scare you he stated It was an aberration The president of the University of Alabama Stuart Bell notified graduates before Trump took the stage that Thursday night s event was all about them This special ceremony offers a meaningful opportunity for you for I to reflect on the vital connection between academic inquiry civic leadership and residents arrangement Bell explained Trump mostly went in a different direction He did a grunting impression of a female weightlifter as he criticized the participation of transgender women in sports He bragged about how tech moguls have warmed up to him saying They all hated me in my first term and now they re kissing my ass And he falsely claimed that the electoral process which he lost was rigged But after talking up his tariff plans sharing his successes from his first days in office and bashing the media Trump turned back to the graduates offering pieces of advice drawn from his life and career such as Think of yourself as a winner Be an original and Never ever give up He narrated them they were never too young to be achieving and described how he worked on his first hotel advance deal in his s Now is the time to work harder than you ve ever worked before he noted Find your limits and then smash through everything Although Trump described the speech as a commencement address it is definitely a special event that was created before graduation ceremonies that begin Friday Graduating students had the option of attending the event Former Crimson Tide football coach Nick Saban also spoke regaling the audience with a story about visiting the Oval Office in during Trump s first term Saban reported Trump was a gracious host In his remarks Thursday Trump noted that he was marking his th day in office and touted the plummeting levels of arrests at the southern U S dividing line as evidence that his immigration policies were working But he accused the courts of trying to stop him from fulfilling the promises he made on the campaign trail Judges are interfering supposedly based on due process he reported But how can you give due process to people who came into our country illegally Trump has a long history of injecting such rhetoric into his remarks at venues where traditional political talk was seen as unseemly On his first full day in office in he used a speech at a memorial for fallen CIA agents to complain about journalists and defend the size of his crowd at the inauguration Later that year he drew backlash for talking about politics at a Boy Scouts gathering And earlier this year he delivered a grievance-filled speech at the Justice Department where he threatened to expose his enemies Ahead of Trump s arrival Emily Appel a -year-old advertising major from Norcross Georgia called Trump s appearance at her school a cherry on top of her college years She explained she hoped he had a message to share that was positive about us being able to work in the real world and for our future Sophie Best who is graduating with a communications degree commented I don t think that we could have had a greater person come to speak The -year-old from Cartersville Georgia revealed she attended Trump s first presidential inauguration in when she was a freshman in high school along with her father who she explained loves Trump I think that no matter what political party or whatever you believe in I think that it s super cool that we get to experience and make history and be a part of this she stated At a park a mile away hundreds of people gathered at a counter-rally hosted by College Democrats One-time presidential candidate Beto O Rourke of Texas and former U S Sen Doug Jones the last Democrat to hold statewide office in Alabama addressed the attendees at their event called a Tide Against Trump a play on the university s nickname Aidan Meyers a -year-old junior studying biology at the university commented he was upset by the decision to let Trump speak at a graduation-related event I felt betrayed that the university was willing to put up with someone who has made it clear that they hate academia essentially holding funding above universities heads as a bargaining chip unless they bow down to what he wants which is kind of a hallmark sign with fascist regime Meyers revealed O Rourke stated the rally that Trump was trying to make the students graduation all about him true to form He urged students and others gathered to go out and use their voices to win America back The power of people works in this country even against Donald Trump O Rourke reported Jones explained the crowd they were there not just as a protest but as a movement You are here the present day because you re concerned you re afraid You understand that this country s great democracy is teetering right now with what we re seeing going on the former senator reported Trump s presence also drew criticism from the Alabama NAACP which reported his policies are hurting universities and students particularly students of color After his stop in Alabama Trump is scheduled to passage to Florida for a long weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort Later this month he is scheduled to give the commencement address at the U S Military Academy in West Point New York Associated Press writers Bill Barrow in Atlanta and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this record Source