Trump celebrates West Point alumni group canceling award ceremony to
honor Tom Hanks
[September 09, 2025]
By MICHELLE L. PRICE
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump celebrated news on Monday that
an alumni group from West Point canceled an award ceremony set to honor
Tom Hanks, with the president calling the famous actor “destructive” and
“WOKE.”
Hanks was scheduled to receive the 2025 Sylvanus Thayer Award on Sept.
25, but the U.S. Military Academy's alumni association canceled the
ceremony last week, according to news reports.
“Important move!” Trump said in a post on his social media network
Monday. “We don’t need destructive, WOKE recipients getting our
cherished American Awards!!! Hopefully the Academy Awards, and other
Fake Award Shows, will review their Standards and Practices in the name
of Fairness and Justice.”
West Point, its alumni association and a representative for Hanks did
not immediately respond to messages and calls seeking comment Monday.
It comes as Trump has moved to direct the ideology and leadership of
higher education institutes and the military in his second term, seeking
to assert control with a mix of executive orders and threats of legal
action and withholding funds.
This summer, the Army secretary directed West Point to review its hiring
practices, bar outside groups from choosing employees and remove a newly
announced hire who led the nation’s cybersecurity agency under
then-President Joe Biden.
Earlier this year, West Point disbanded a dozen cadet clubs centered on
ethnicity, gender, race and sexuality in response to the Trump
administration’s push to eliminate diversity programs throughout
government. The school also rehung a painting of Gen. Robert E. Lee
dressed in his Confederate uniform in the library as the Trump
administration has pushed to restore Confederate names and monuments
that have been removed in recent years.
The Sylvanus Thayer Award award is named for an early superintendent of
the military academy who is known as the “Father of West Point." It has
been given out every year since 1958 “to an outstanding citizen of the
United States whose service and accomplishments in the national interest
exemplify personal devotion to the ideals expressed in West Point’s
motto: ‘Duty, Honor, Country,’” according to the West Point Association
of Graduates.
“Tom Hanks has done more for the positive portrayal of the American
service member, more for the caring of the American veteran, their
caregivers and their family, and more for the American space program and
all branches of government than many other Americans,” association board
chairman Robert McDonald said in a June press release about the award.
Retired Army Col. Mark Bieger, president and chief executive officer of
the association, wrote in an email Friday that the decision to call off
the award ceremony “allows the Academy to continue its focus on its core
mission of preparing cadets to lead, fight, and win as officers in the
world’s most lethal force, the United States Army,” according to The
Washington Post, which was first to report on the cancellation.
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Tom Hanks arrives at the 15th Governors Awards Nov. 17, 2024, at The
Ray Dolby Ballroom in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP,
File)
 Last year's recipient was former
President Barack Obama.
Hanks starred in the 1998 war drama “Saving Private Ryan” and
co-produced with Steven Spielberg the World War II HBO miniseries
“Band of Brothers.”
Hanks is among Hollywood’s most politically active celebrities,
donating to support a slew of Democratic politicians and progressive
causes. He vocally endorsed Obama, Hillary Clinton and Biden in
their presidential bids and signed an open letter endorsing Kamala
Harris last year.
He’s also gone to work for the Democrats. In 2012, he narrated a
short documentary, “The Road We’ve Traveled,” for Obama’s reelection
campaign.
To fete Biden’s inauguration in 2021, Hanks hosted a 90-minute
prime-time television special, “Celebrating America.”
A year later, he narrated a two-minute ad spot from the Biden
Inaugural Committee touting the accomplishments of the president’s
first term. He also served as a celebrity co-chair for When We All
Vote, a nonpartisan civic engagement organization founded by former
first lady Michelle Obama to boost voter outreach.
And for the better part of the past decade, Hanks has made no secret
of his disapproval of Trump and the president’s policies. He called
the then-Republican candidate a “self-involved gasbag” during an
on-stage interview in 2016. After Trump took office, Hanks said
during an American Civil Liberties Union fundraiser that actions
like the attempted travel ban for Muslim-majority countries
represented a “brand of tragedy.”
During Biden’s inauguration, he spoke of “deep divisions and a
troubling rancor in our land” and warned against attempts to twist
the truth by those entrusted with public service during a 2023
Harvard commencement speech. Just this past year, he stoked the ire
of Trump supporters after depicting a caricature of one during the
50th anniversary special of “Saturday Night Live.”
___
Associated Press writers Konstantin Toropin in Washington and
Jocelyn Noveck and Mallika Sen in New York contributed to this
report.
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