VIDEO: Trump Gives Politically Charged Speech at Navy 250th Anniversary Event

After being criticized for breaking the apolitical tradition of the U.S. military while addressing generals and admirals last week, President Donald Trump ratcheted up the rhetoric in a speech before thousands of U.S. sailors on Sunday, during a celebration of the Navy's 250th anniversary at Naval Station Norfolk.

In a meandering speech that closely resembled Trump's campaign rallies, the president railed against "wokeness" and the news media, repeated false claims about having won the 2020 election, and continued to defend sending U.S. troops into Democratic cities. In his most blatantly partisan statement to troops yet, Trump urged them, "We have to take care of this little gnat that's on our shoulder called the Democrats."

Trump also lobbed insults at former President Biden and called a few unnamed former Navy leaders "major losers." The president also repeated an oft-told claim regarding attempting to warn officials about Osama bin Laden ahead of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

"I wrote about Osama bin Laden exactly one year ago, one year before he blew up the World Trade Center, and I said you gotta watch Osama bin Laden, and the fake news would never let me get away with that statement unless it was true, but I said one year before to Pete Hegseth, where is Pete? I said one year before in the book, I wrote, whatever the hell the title, I can’t tell you, but I can tell you there’s a page in there devoted to the fact that I saw somebody named Osama bin Laden and I didn’t like it, and you gotta take care of him. They didn’t do it, a year later he blew up the World Trade Center, so I gotta take a little credit cause nobody else is gonna give it to me. You know the old story: if they don’t give you credit, just take it yourself."

Bin Laden had been on the FBI's most wanted list far ahead of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.  Trump ended the event with his signature dance to the Village People's YMCA.