WEST POINT — In a last-minute announcement, the United States Military Academy at West Point said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will deliver its commencement address to graduating cadets on Saturday.

Commencement at West Point is slated to begin at 10 a.m. at Michie Stadium. The speech will mark Hegseth’s first visit to the Hudson Valley campus.

Hegseth was a member of the U.S. Army National Guard and served active-duty deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq, and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Before joining the Trump administration, he was a Fox News contributor and a co-host of “Fox & Friends.”

West Point has had a rocky relationship with the administration in recent years. A longtime law professor sued university administrators in September, alleging that the military academy censored faculty speech after Trump ordered his Defense and Homeland Security departments to “carefully review the leadership, curriculum, and instructors” of U.S. service academies. The lawsuit came eight months after West Point disbanded a dozen cadet clubs centered on ethnicity, gender, race and sexuality in response to the Trump administration’s push to eliminate diversity programs throughout the federal government.

Trump’s commencement address last year included a campaign-style recitation of political boasts and long-held grievances. Wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat, the president told graduating cadets that the United States was the “hottest country in the world” and underscored an “America First” ethos for the military.