Former President Donald Trump’s recent campaign rally in Pennsylvania featured a video that criticized the United States military under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for what it deemed as “wokeness” and called for the restoration of the military’s former greatness. The video juxtaposed clips from the movie “Full Metal Jacket,” with scenes depicting active duty service members transforming themselves into drag queens.
The video began by showing a clip from the film featuring the character Marine Gunnery Sgt. Hartman yelling at a new recruit, then cut to a clip of Navy Adm. Rachel Levine, who serves as the Biden-Harris administration’s assistant secretary for health for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS. Levine, a transgender man, is shown saying, “Happy Pride. Happy Pride Month, and actually, let’s declare it a summer of pride.
The video then switched back and forth between scenes from the movie and clips featuring two active duty service members in uniform before they transformed themselves into drag queens and began dancing. One of these individuals is a digital ambassador for the U.S. Navy and has performed on ships while deployed. The clip ends with recruits calling cadence and displays the words “Let’s make our military great again” across the screen.
Following the video, Trump remarked, “It’s a little exaggeration. Probably really not that much, actually.
During a recent Veterans for Trump rally, the former president pledged to establish a task force aimed at eradicating “wokeness” and other initiatives fostered under the Biden-Harris administration from the military. Some of these initiatives include hiring a DEI senior adviser, forming a counter-extremism task force, undoing Trump’s order allowing only biological sex to serve in the military, and implementing a COVID vaccine mandate that led to the dismissal of over 8,000 healthy troops who refused vaccination.