The stage line landed Wednesday night in North Dakota, and it will be back on bigger stages all weekend: "You could not get people to join the military," the President said. "We had the worst years we've ever had under Sleepy Joe Biden." [1] Tomorrow night he speaks on the National Mall before an all-branch airshow with more than 300 military musicians. [4] Before the line gets its biggest audience of the year, here is the after-action report.
THE CLAIM "You could not get people to join the military. We had the worst years we've ever had under Sleepy Joe Biden."
- Donald Trump, Medora, North Dakota, July 1 [1]
The people who joined
In fiscal year 2024 - Biden's last full year - about 225,000 people joined the armed forces, up from roughly 200,000 the year before: a 12.5 percent jump, entirely before the election. [2] The Army, the service at the center of the crisis, met its 55,000-recruit goal in fiscal 2024 after missing badly in 2022 and 2023. [3] The recruiting peak came in late August 2024 - months before anyone voted - which is why PolitiFact rated this same claim Mostly False when it debuted last year, quoting a military sociologist: Trump "shouldn't get credit for processes that preceded his election." [2]
Data
| FY2022 | 45 K |
|---|---|
| FY2023 | 50 K |
| FY2024 - goal met | 55 K |
| FY2025 | 61 K |
Who actually fixed it
The turnaround has a launch date: August 2022, when the Army stood up the Future Soldier Prep Course - a program that helps willing recruits meet academic and fitness standards before basic training. It supplied roughly a quarter of the Army's 2024 recruits, and the service entered 2025 with a delayed-entry pool of more than 20,000 already signed - before the new administration took office. [3] The Army's own secretary, asked whether "wokeness" drove the crisis, answered on the record that it "has not been a significant issue in our recruiting crisis." [3]
THE RECEIPTS
- 225,000 joined DoD-wide in FY2024, up 12.5 percent - Biden's last year. [2]
- The Army met its FY2024 goal; the fix launched August 2022. [3]
- Recruiting peaked in late August 2024, months before the election. [2]
- Today's "record" pipeline includes 20,000+ recruits signed before the inauguration. [3]
The honest version
The crisis was real: fiscal 2022 was the Army's worst shortfall of the all-volunteer era, and 2023 missed badly too - a fair speech could hang those years on the Biden administration's watch and take credit for the strong numbers since. [3] What the claim adds is the falsehood: that nobody would join until the stage's current occupant arrived. The quarter-million people who signed up in 2024, the recruiters who rebuilt the pipeline, and the prep-course instructors who did it deserve better than being written out of their own turnaround - on the country's 250th birthday, in front of the very formations they filled. [2][3]
THE BOTTOM LINE The turnaround is real and it crossed the goal line before Election Day. The soldiers on the Mall tomorrow are the proof - many of them signed up during the years the speech says nobody would.
The after-action report is short: the recovery has dates, and the dates do not vote the way the speech does. [2][3]
