President Trump went after Tom Hanks on Monday after West Point canceled an award ceremony to honor the actor.
Over the weekend, news broke that the alumni association at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point scrapped a plan to give the 69-year-old Oscar winner their Sylvanus Thayer Award — which honors an “outstanding citizen” who did not attend the academy but exemplifies the the values of “duty, honor and country.” The Saving Private Ryan actor and Band of Brothers producer is a longtime veterans advocate.
According to The Washington Post, an alumni association representative explained the move in a statement: “This decision 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.”
The ceremony was scheduled for later this month. It’s unclear if Hanks will still receive the award now that the ceremony has been scrapped.
Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Our great West Point (getting greater all the time!) has smartly cancelled the Award Ceremony for actor Tom Hanks. Important move! 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. Watch their DEAD RATINGS SURGE.”
While this probably isn’t the first time Hanks has been called “woke,” it might mark the first time the famously congenial actor has been dubbed “destructive.”
The association originally announced Hanks would receive the award in June and heaped praise on the actor for his roles portraying service members across a variety of films, explaining, “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.”
Past recipients have included Barack Obama, philanthropist Kenneth Fisher, journalist Tom Brokaw and Hanks’ Forrest Gump castmate Gary Sinise.
