On CNN Saturday, White House correspondent Jeremy Diamond laid into President Donald Trump for failing to mention racial injustice at any point in his West Point graduation speech.
"What we heard him talk about was especially the history of this military academy, the history of the U.S. Army, and we heard the president really talk about the importance at this time, the moments in time, for tough American patriots, which is what he called the graduates of this class of 2020," said Diamond. "What was most interesting was what he did not talk about. We did not hear the president, at this moment of national reckoning on racism, speak in the same way that we have heard so many of the senior military leaders speak over these last couple of weeks."
"We have heard from so many of these senior military officers talk either about their experiences with racism ... Air Force Chief of Staff spoke about in a video message, or hear some of the other top military officials talk about racism in ranks or importance of the military institution in terms of promoting diversity and being at the forefront of bringing about that kind of change that this country needs," said Diamond. "We did not hear the president focus on those issues in the same way."
On the other hand, noted Diamond, "we did hear him make some veiled references to one of the fights that he's been having with the Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, and that is over the issue of whether or not to rename these Confederate military bases ... the president, though, did not delve deep into that. He really strayed from delving deeply either into the questions of this national reckoning on racism or the controversies that he himself has sparked."
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