Saying he's treated 'unfairly,' Trump gears up to fight

NEW LONDON, Conn. — An embattled President Donald Trump used a commencement address to the Coast Guard Academy to defend himself on Wednesday, telling graduating cadets that no leader in history had been treated more "unfairly" by the news media and Washington elites.

Trump began his speech with a tribute to the service's efforts to stop drug dealers on domestic waterways and the open seas. But he quickly changed the subject to himself, signaling that he was gearing up for a fight after a week of damaging disclosures, capped by the revelation that he had pressured James B. Comey, the former FBI director, to drop the bureau's investigation into the president's first national security adviser.

"You will find things are not always fair," said Trump, blurring the lines between an inspirational, forward-looking commencement speech and talk about himself, much as he did at a commencement address to students at Liberty University in Virginia on Saturday.

"You have to put your head down and fight, fight, fight," Trump said, offering his personal credo, before switching to an explicit theme of self-defense. "Look at the way I've been treated lately, especially by the media. No politician in history, and I say with surety, has been treated worse, more unfairly."

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When the audience applauded, Trump — whom aides have described as frustrated and defiant as controversy has engulfed the White House in recent days — smiled and told people to stand by their beliefs.

"You can't let them get you down. You can't let the critics and the naysayers get in the way of your dreams," he said.

"I guess that's why I won," Trump added.

Trump, dressed in a dark suit under a baking sun, read his speech from teleprompters, although he occasionally veered off script to extol the virtues of the Coast Guard. At times, he expressed what seemed like wide-eyed wonderment at its exploits on the high seas and nation's waterways.

"To secure our borders from drug cartels, human smugglers and terrorist threats, Coast Guard cutters patrol more than 1,500 miles below our southern border," he said, adding, to the mild bafflement of a friendly crowd, "A lot of people didn't know that."

The crowd seemed to approve of the president's speech, cheering for him and sometimes offering a standing ovation. But in the bus lines in the parking area after the ceremony, some relatives of graduates complained that Trump had struck a "me-note" with his speech.

It was the president's first public appearance since The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Comey had written a memo in February in which he said the president had asked him to close an investigation into Michael T. Flynn, who had been pushed out the day before as Trump's national security adviser.

Trump did not wave to reporters as he boarded Air Force One for his flight to Connecticut. But he appeared with a smile and a salute as he walked along a processional to the dais at the Coast Guard Academy's football field.

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Presidents have often used speeches to the nation's service academies to lay out important foreign policy principles.

In 2002, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, President George W. Bush used a commencement speech at the U.S. Military Academy to declare his policy of pre-emption, under which the United States pledged to attack any country that posed a critical threat to the American homeland.

In 2014, also at West Point, President Barack Obama told graduating cadets that the United States would rely on local partners to fight counterinsurgency wars in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, rather than committing large numbers of U.S. troops.

Trump used this speech to describe his coming foreign trip, which his new national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, said would focus on a message of unity to the Muslim world. In his Coast Guard address, Trump invoked the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism" and said it was important to stamp it out. Ahead of a meeting with NATO partners in Brussels, he reiterated his call to make allies pay their share for defense.

The president's comments at the ceremony were in contrast to more somber remarks from Adm. Paul F. Zukunft, the Coast Guard commandant, and John F. Kelly, secretary of Homeland Security, about the significance of leadership, character and the rule of law.

"With national security also comes public trust, and the two of those are interwoven," Zukunft said. "You don't have both of those unless you have leaders of character."

Kelly repeatedly referred to the United States as a nation of laws and urged the graduates to focus on protecting the ideals of the U.S. constitution.

"Tell the truth to your seniors," said Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general. "Even if it's uncomfortable."

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Maggie Haberman reported from New London, Connecticut, and Glenn Thrush from Washington. Mark Landler contributed reporting from Washington.