On top of that, the president also suggested that the Academy Awards and other organizations should follow suit and base their decisions on \u201cFairness and Justice\u201d in order to prevent other \u201cdestructive\u201d recipients from receiving their \u201ccherished American Awards.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s missive against Hanks comes days after the alumni association at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point reneged on holding a ceremony<\/a> to acknowledge the achievements of Hanks. The cancellation comes just months after the organization said they were honoring the actor for his work as an \u201coutstanding citizen\u201d who exemplified the ideals of \u201cduty, honor, and country\u201d through his advocacy for veterans and portrayal of military service members on screen.<\/p>\n In its announcement in June, the association stated it was giving the prestigious Sylvanus Thayer Award to the 69-year-old actor, saying he had \u201cdone 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Besides pointing out Hanks\u2019 support for creating the World War II Memorial in D.C. and his role as national chairman to establish the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, the association also highlighted his work portraying soldiers in Saving Private Ryan, Forrest Gump and Greyhound. Additionally, they noted that Hanks had helped produce the World War II-themed miniseries Band of Brothers and The Pacific.<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Donald Trump applauded West Point for \u2018smartly\u2019 cancelling an awards ceremony for \u2018WOKE\u2019 Tom Hanks. (Getty)<\/p>\n Retired Army Col. Mark Bieger, president and chief executive officer of the West Point Association of Graduates, told faculty Friday that the group was canceling the planned ceremony and parade, which was scheduled to take place on September 25. According to Bieger\u2019s email, he said this was part of a desire for the academy to instead focus on preparing future officers.<\/p>\n \u201cThis 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in the world\u2019s most lethal force, the United States Army,\u201d he wrote, without noting if the award itself had been revoked or would be presented elsewhere.<\/p>\n \u201cOur great West Point (getting greater all the time!) has smartly cancelled the Award Ceremony for actor Tom Hanks. Important move!\u201d Trump crowed<\/a> on Truth Social Monday morning. <\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t 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,\u201d the president added. \u201cWatch their DEAD RATINGS SURGE!\u201d<\/p>\n The now-canceled celebration appears to have run directly into not only Trump\u2019s makeover of the nation\u2019s military branches and academies<\/a>, but also the president\u2019s pressure campaigns against institutions<\/a> and media organizations<\/a> that he feels have become too \u201cwoke\u201d and politically correct.<\/p>\n Shortly after returning to the White House, the president signed an executive order that barred West Point and other military academies from \u201cpromoting, advancing or otherwise inculcating\u201d ideas deemed \u201cun-American\u201d including \u201cgender ideology\u201d and the idea that \u201cAmerica\u2019s founding documents are racist or sexist.\u201d <\/p>\n Professors at the academies have since stated<\/a> that they were compelled to remove books by esteemed authors such as James Baldwin, Toni Morrison and other writers of color. Furthermore, history classes on gender and race were canceled and the sociology major was dissolved. <\/p>\n In recent weeks, the administration has directed West Point to revoke Jen Easterly’s appointment from the school\u2019s social sciences department following complaints from self-appointed Trump \u201cloyalty enforcer\u201d Laura Loomer. West Point also recently rehung<\/a> a 20-foot portrait of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, which features a slave guiding Lee\u2019s horse in the background.<\/p>\n And just last week, the president rebranded the Pentagon as the Department of War, complaining that the Department of Defense had become too \u201cwokey.\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Hanks was initially praised by the West Point alumni group for his longtime support of veterans organizations and his portrayal of US service members on screen. (Invision\/AP)<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Hanks\u2019 longtime support of Democratic causes and presidents \u2013 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama in 2016 \u2013 has likely fueled the president\u2019s celebration of the awards ceremony cancellation. <\/p>\n Besides recently sparking outrage among MAGA supporters for his comedic portrayal of a Trump voter on Saturday Night Live (a reprisal of a role he first took on in 2016), Hanks has been critical of Trump\u2019s actions and politics in recent years while campaigning for former President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n Following Biden\u2019s 2020 election victory and Trump\u2019s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud, which culminated in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, Hanks hosted a televised event organized by the Biden Inaugural Committee. During the program, Hanks bemoaned the \u201cdeep divisions and a troubling rancor\u201d that Trump had helped propagate during the previous years.<\/p>\n In a separate video a year later, Hanks touted the Biden administration\u2019s handling of the economy and the COVID-19 pandemic, stating that the country was stronger than we were a year ago today. <\/p>\n Still, while Hanks has long received MAGA criticism for his liberal leanings and Democratic associations, right-wing media outlets have also defended him from so-called \u201ccancel culture.\u201d <\/p>\n In 2021, for instance, Fox News took aim<\/a> at an NPR TV critic for writing a column calling on Hanks to be \u201canti-racist\u201d rather than \u201cnon-racist,\u201d claiming that the piece was yet another example of the liberal establishment attempting to \u201ccancel\u201d a prominent figure for not being \u201cwoke\u201d enough.<\/p>\n \u201cCancel Culture Comes For Tom Hanks,\u201d one Fox News chyron read during that ragebait cycle, while multiple network personalities raged about the treatment the Hollywood superstar was receiving at the time. \u201cBeing white in America apparently has a lot of pitfalls,\u201d Fox News contributor Joe Concha declared at one point<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-131055","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Donald](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Hanks.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Hanks](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Trump-West-Point-Hanks-l4maf1r1.jpeg\")
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