LANDOVER — President-elect Donald Trump attended his fifth Army-Navy Game on Saturday and first since he was last in office.
His first was in 2016 at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore. During his first term, Trump was a routine visitor from 2018 to 2020, attending two games in Philadelphia and one in West Point, New York. But Trump won’t take in the 125th battle for the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy alone.
Others expected to join his suite at Northwest Stadium include Vice President-elect J.D. Vance; Florida Governor Ron DeSantis; House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.); Pete Hegseth, a former Army National Guard officer and Trump’s pick for secretary of defense; and Daniel Penny, a military veteran who was acquitted of criminally negligent homicide this week in the chokehold death of an agitated subway rider in New York.
A camera inside the presidential suite showed Trump on the big screen, flanked by Vance and billionaire Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and executive chairman of X. The crowd at Northwest Stadium erupted in cheers, with many students from both sides waving their caps.
Trump has been making an increasing number of public appearances before his inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025. He was accompanied by his family and Vance on Thursday as he rang the opening bell for the New York Stock Exchange after being recognized as Time magazine’s Person of the Year.
It would not be unprecedented for Trump to make headlines for a non-football announcement. It was the 2018 Army-Navy Game where he fired off a tweet to announce Gen. Mark Milley, then the Army chief of staff, as his nominee for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Trump spent some of that Saturday taking in the game from a box suite with Milley.
A year later, Trump offered a locker room pitch to players before the game.
He wanted to pave a way for those athletes with pro potential to delay their active-duty service, a policy introduced during Barack Obama’s administration (which allowed the Ravens to draft Navy quarterback Keenan Reynolds in 2016), rescinded by the Defense Department in 2017, and reinstated under Trump.
The President-elect has made an appearance on the TV broadcast as well. In 2016, he joined announcers Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson in the CBS Television booth, only to make both fanbases cringe with a back-handed compliment.
“I just love the armed forces. Love the folks,” Trump said. “The spirit is so incredible. I mean, I don’t know it’s necessarily the best football, but it’s very good. But boy do they have a spirit. More than anybody. It’s beautiful.”
Since 1901, 10 sitting United States presidents have attended the Army-Navy Game, starting with Theodore Roosevelt. It is believed Trump’s 2016 appearance made him the first president-elect to visit one of college football’s oldest traditions.
The Associated Press contributed to this article. Have a news tip? Contact Sam Cohn at scohn@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/samdcohn.