New London — Year after year, U.S. presidents make the rounds at the country's military service academies to speak to graduates.

Often those speeches are ceremonial in tone, focusing on the sacrifice and patriotism of the newly minted officers, and the importance of their service. Politics can come into play if a president wants to make a particular point.

President Ronald Reagan used his 1988 address to Coast Guard Academy cadets to push his anti-drug proposals. "If we cannot remove the politics from drugs, how can we hope to remove the drugs from our communities, workplaces and schools?" he asked.

In 2015, President Barack Obama focused on climate change, which he called "an immediate risk to our national security."

On Wednesday, President Donald J. Trump will address the graduating cadets at the Coast Guard Academy in a ceremony set to begin at 11 a.m.

"I think he's going to really articulate a position that you probably heard during the campaign about peace through strength," said Gary Rose, professor and chairman in the Department of Government, Politics and Global Studies at Sacred Heart University.

Historically, Rose said, presidents have kept to a similar theme when speaking at service academies: "I've got your back, you can trust me to do what's right."

"I'm going to make sure that you are well equipped and my administration is really going to cater to the needs of the men and women in uniform," he continued.

Nearly four months into office, Trump's Coast Guard speech comes at an interesting time politically. Last week, he abruptly fired FBI director James Comey, and in a later tweet said that Comey "better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!"

And on Monday, The Washington Post reported that Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador last week.

"If more political troubles come his way and he reacts emotionally to them, there is a chance that he could go off script," said Scott McLean, a political science professor at Quinnipiac University.

Both McLean and Rose, who were interviewed before The Post story was published, pointed to how presidents can use these speeches to try to boost their approval ratings.

"They often seek to use these events as a way to remind the country of the nonpartisan aspects of the presidency, that the presidency is a unifying institution in our political system or that it can be," McLean said, adding that "oftentimes that message does come through."

"He needs this," Rose said. "Speeches like the one forthcoming and graduation speeches are really critical to a president, especially one such as Trump who really in many ways is mired in all of this controversy and subterfuge going on in the capital."

Trump has proposed an increase in spending for the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, which the Coast Guard falls under. But documents leaked before Trump officially unveiled his budget request showed a proposal to slash the Coast Guard's budget by $1.3 billion to pay for other priorities within DHS, namely cracking down on illegal immigration. The cut did not make it into Trump's 2018 budget request, which was released in March. He will unveil a more detailed budget proposal in May.

"The conventional thing to do would be to simply use the opportunity to play the role of a traditional president in a ceremonial role at the Coast Guard, and simply read from prepared remarks given to him from speechwriter," McLean said. "But Trump rarely follows a script."

Trump's Coast Guard address will be his second commencement address as president. Over the weekend, he spoke to thousands of graduates at Liberty University.

In many ways, Trump's Liberty University address featured the traditional well-wishing to graduates.

"Now you must go forth into the world and turn your hopes and dreams into action," he said. "America has always been the land of dreams because America is a nation of true believers."

He also encouraged them to "relish the opportunity to be an outsider."

"Embrace that label — being an outsider is fine, embrace the label — because it's the outsiders who change the world and who make a real and lasting difference," he said.

j.bergman@theday.com