Donald Trump launched a vitriolic attack against Tom Hanks for supposedly being “destructive” and “woke” after one of America’s most beloved actors was snubbed without much explanation by West Point last week.
On his social media site on Monday, the US president applauded the alumni association of the US Military Academy (or West Point) for abruptly calling off a ceremony honoring Hanks, twice an Academy award winner who has played numerous military characters and also has a long history of advocating for veterans.
Trump wrote: “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!”
Hanks had been scheduled to receive the 2025 Sylvanus Thayer Award later this month for his “service and accomplishments in the national interest”.
In a message to faculty, retired Col Mark Bieger declared the cancellation would allow the institution 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”, without elaborating how the two are connected.
Hanks has previously endorsed Democratic candidates including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
He has been deeply involved in veterans’ causes. He was the national spokesperson for the World War II Memorial in Washington DC. He also supported Bob Dole’s fundraising campaign for the Dwight D Eisenhower Memorial, according to the alumni association’s own original statement.
He has already been inducted as an honorary member into the US Army’s Ranger Hall of Fame. In 2016, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Among his military portrayals are Capt John Miller in Saving Private Ryan, the Vietnam war soldier Forrest Gump (for which he won the Oscar for best actor), and Cmdr Ernie Krause in Greyhound, for which he also wrote the screenplay. He also portrayed the title role in 2013’s Captain Phillips and appeared in the cold war film Bridge of Spies.
His work has made him one of the US’s most decorated actors, with seven Emmy awards to go alongside the five Academy award nominations for best actor, which he won twice in a row.
Trump, who has dabbled in acting including a cameo in Home Alone 2, has regularly complained about never winning an Emmy for his reality television show The Apprentice, lamenting that he “should have gotten it”, that he “got screwed out of an Emmy” and that “the Emmys are all politics”.
