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Trump Attends Army-Navy Game As Black Knights Snap 14-Year Losing Streak

President-elect Donald Trump greets Army Cadets before the Army-Navy football game on Saturday in Baltimore.
Patrick Semansky
/
AP
President-elect Donald Trump greets Army Cadets before the Army-Navy football game on Saturday in Baltimore.

President-elect Donald Trump took in one of college football's most storied rivalries on Saturday — the Army vs. Navy game.

The annual game between the military service academies was held this year in Baltimore. The soon-to-be commander-in-chief was cheered with chants of "USA! USA!" as he entered the stadium.

Trump talked with CBS Sports announcers Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson during the third quarter of the game, joking that perhaps he should appoint Ludquist as ambassador to Sweden. Lundquist was calling his final football game for CBS on Saturday.

And while Trump said he was happy to be attending the game, he told CBS the traditional meeting between the rival military academies maybe wasn't the most exciting football game.

"I just love the armed forces, love the folks. The spirit is so incredible. I mean, I don't know if it's necessarily the best football, but it's very good, "Trump said. "But boy do they have spirit, more than anybody. It's beautiful."

It did end up being an exciting game, with Army snapping their 14-year losing streak over Navy in a close 21-17 win. But Trump left before the game was over.

Before he departed for New York, the president-elect split his time by sitting on both the Army and Navy sides, in boxes partially enclosed by bulletproof glass. On the Army side, he was a guest in the box of David Urban, a 1986 West Point graduate who advised Trump's campaign in Pennsylvania. Also in the box were Gen. Mark A. Milley, chief of staff of the U.S. Army, and Lt. Gen. General Robert L. Caslen, Jr., the superintendent of the West Point academy.

On the Navy side, he was a guest of retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, a graduate of the Annapolis academy and a former national security aide in the Reagan administration who was embroiled in the Iran-Contra affair. Also in the Navy box were Admiral John Richardson, chief of U.S. Navy Operations, and Gen. Robert Neller, Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Jessica Taylor is a political reporter with NPR based in Washington, DC, covering elections and breaking news out of the White House and Congress. Her reporting can be heard and seen on a variety of NPR platforms, from on air to online. For more than a decade, she has reported on and analyzed House and Senate elections and is a contributing author to the 2020 edition of The Almanac of American Politics and is a senior contributor to The Cook Political Report.