President Trump led chants of ‘oorah’ with a group of new marines who formed a Veterans Day audience for ESPN’s Pat McAfee Show from Parris Island on Tuesday.
On three separate occassions, McAfee offered the president a chance to whip up the group as part of his surprise appearance on the show to commemorate Veterans. The chant is synonymous with the marines and is battlecry that dates back to the 1950s.
After getting them to repeat the chant to welcome Trump onto the show, McAfee said: ‘The new marines Mr President just “oorah’d” the hell out of you there.’
‘Oh well that’s good, we love them, they are a special group indeed,’ Trump replied with a laugh. ‘I just heard a level of professionalism with the way they did it, I don’t think anybody can match it.’
‘Mr President, have you ever done an “oorah” to a bunch of marines? Mr President, why don’t you drop one, Mr President why don’t you drop an “oorah’ real quick?’
Trump duly obliged and got a powerful reply. And Trump’s willingness to oblige seemed to encourage McAfee, who asked him to do it again once more in the middle of their chat and then one more at the end.
Donald Trump led ‘ooorah’ chants with a group of new marines on The Pat McAfee show
The ESPN presenter welcomed Trump as a guest while broadcasting from Parris Island
‘It’s getting better and better,’ McAfee said after the second one, before rounding out their discussion by asking him to do it for a third and final time.
‘I appreciate you, Mr President,’ McAfee said after thanking him for appearing on his show. ‘How about one last “oorah” for the crowd?’
Trump said: ‘You want me to do another one? I’ll do another one: OOORAH.’
During the discussion itself, Trump was asked which NFL coach he thinks would make a good President and while he didn’t name names, he said he thinks NFL coaches would be useful strategists in a war.
Trump explained: ‘We had the great Philadelphia and he (Nick Sirianni) is some coach.
‘I’ve often thought, you know strategy-wise you see some of the good strategy – every once in a while you see some pretty bad strategy too, we can name plenty of that – but you see strategy.
‘I’ve often said we go out and get the best four or five coaches and put them in a room if you are going to war and use them. Because they do it, ultimately it is all about strategy.
‘It is about attack, it is about what angle, give me the angle of attack. I’ll bet you some of these coaches would make great warring generals. I tell you, I would not be beneath doing that.
‘You get five or six of those guys, I know some of them. They come to the White House every year with the winning team, the winning Super Bowl team. I’ve gotten to know them through that.
‘You wouldn’t lose badly if you did that, I’ll tell you. Tremendous guys, great leaders.’
