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Trump Participates in a Commander-in-Chief Trophy Presentation to the Navy Midshipmen, Apr. 15, 2025

April 15, 2025 · The White House · 0:20:51

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump officially presented the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy to the 2024 Navy Midshipmen football team at the White House on Apr. 15, 2025, carried on the White House channel. The President noted the run of champions through the White House that week - Ohio State the day before and the Dodgers earlier - and invited the team to the Oval Office afterward to receive something special.

The President was joined by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, and the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, whom the President recalled talking about in his speeches for years: “I said, ‘What happened to that guy raising Kane? I want him.’ And that’s what happened,” as he told it. He also thanked retiring Naval Academy athletic director Chet Gladchuk - 24 years, four national championships, 251 conference titles and 352 All-American athletes, as the President recited the record - and newly appointed Naval Academy Board of Visitors members Sean Spicer and Walt Nauta.

The President recounted the team’s season: after four disappointing seasons, Coach Brian Newberry had plastered pictures of the trophy on every wall, and in 2024 the Midshipmen lived up to that vision. The team’s captains presented the President with gifts, and the coach told the room the 23 seniors on stage would graduate and commission as officers in the Navy and Marine Corps within a little over a month.

Why it matters

The Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy presentation is the service-academy honor at the center of the President’s military-ceremony record, and this one doubled as an introduction for his new national-security team in public - a new Joint Chiefs chairman and a new Secretary of the Navy standing with the Commander in Chief in front of the officers they will lead.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump Participates in a Commander-in-Chief Trophy Presentation to the Navy Midshipmen” (YouTube, Apr. 15, 2025) - official description and broadcast transcript as aired.