LYNCHBURG, Va. — Donald Trump, the real estate mogul-turned-president, offered simple words of advice to university graduates Saturday as he urged them to follow their convictions, prepare to face criticism and relish the opportunity to be an “outsider.”
“It’s the outsiders who change the world,” Trump declared in his first commencement address to more than 18,000 graduates of Liberty University, a Christian school whose president was one of Trump’s earliest and most outspoken supporters during last year’s presidential campaign.
Trump kept to a largely upbeat message during the roughly 30-minute speech, never mentioning his decision this past week to remove James Comey as FBI director.
Tens of thousands of people packed an on-campus stadium to welcome Trump, the second sitting president to address the university’s commencement ceremony, with applause and a standing ovation.
Drawing parallels to what was widely viewed as a longshot presidential bid, Trump urged the graduates to never stop fighting for what they believe in.
“Remember this: Nothing worth doing ever, ever, ever came easy,” he said.
“Following your convictions means you must be willing to face criticism from those who lack the same courage to do what is right, and they know what is right, but they don’t have the courage or the guts or the stamina to take it and to do it,” said Trump, who did not wear a gown.
Trump advised the graduates to “never quit” and to carry themselves with “dignity and pride.”
“Demand the best from yourself and be totally unafraid to challenge entrenched interests and failed power structures,” Trump said, in a dig at the Washington political establishment he has vowed to shake up. “Does that sound familiar, by the way?”
Trump also urged graduates to “treat the word ‘impossible’ as nothing more than motivation” and “relish the opportunity to be an outsider.”
“The more that a broken system tells you that you’re wrong, the more certain you should be that you must keep pushing ahead,” he said. “You must keep pushing forward.”
Trump won an overwhelming 80 percent of the white evangelical vote during the election, and a recent Pew Research Center survey marking his first 100 days in office — a milestone reached on April 29 — found three-fourths of white evangelicals approved of his performance as president. Just 39 percent of the general public held the same view.
Jerry Falwell Jr., Liberty University’s president who endorsed the thrice-married Trump in January 2016 just before that year’s Iowa caucuses and became a key campaign surrogate, praised Trump’s actions on issues that concern Christian conservatives.
“I really don’t think any other president has done more for evangelicals and the faith community in four months than President Trump has,” Falwell said in an interview on Friday.
Trump is scheduled to address graduates of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn., on Wednesday.
