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Trump attacks Tom Hanks after West Point cancels event honoring actor

President calls Hanks ‘woke’ in vitriolic post after US Military Academy calls off ceremony with little explanation

Mon 8 Sep 2025 12.24 EDT

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”.

CBS' new corporate owner has taken a series of concrete steps to address the concerns of the news division's sharpest critics — particularly President Trump and his allies.

In recent days, the network selected a new ombudsman for CBS News with strong conservative credentials. It promised to run full, unedited interviews on a key public affairs show after receiving blowback from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. And it's in talks to bring on a top news executive who believes the mainstream press is reflexively biased.

All of these decisions have come from top officials at Paramount under the new ownership of Skydance Media. And they represent a grand accommodation to Trump by CBS, known for its rich legacy of journalistic touchstones spanning back to the dawn of television news, including Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite and 60 Minutes.

Its coverage of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War, U.S. astronauts walking on the moon, Watergate and the Tiananmen Square massacre helped to define those events for Americans. In recent years, some of its most prominent correspondents have covered Trump aggressively. And Trump has attacked the network in his public statements.

These latest moves under Skydance follow a $16 million payment by CBS' previous owner to settle a lawsuit Trump brought against the network and regulatory pressure by Trump's chief broadcast regulator against the sale. Even since CBS changed hands, it has not escaped the wrath of the Trump administration. Recently, the White House and Noem lambasted the network over the handling of a recent interview.

Now, The Wall Street Journal reports that the company wants to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery — the owner of Warner Bros. studios, HBO Max and cable news giant CNN. Such grand ambitions would have to pass muster with Trump administration regulators once more. And they would also raise questions about CNN's direction under Skydance, were they to come to pass.

Paramount Global, CBS and CBS News have declined to comment.

Skydance is run by its founder, David Ellison. He's the producer (along with Paramount Pictures) of Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible movie franchise, among other properties. He is also the son of Oracle founder Larry Ellison, one of the richest people in the world and a vocal backer of President Trump.