Did Martina Navratilova say 'respect is earned, not given' in response to Trump?

In late June 2026, people shared a quote meme alleging retired tennis star Martina Navratilova responded to remarks from U.S. President Donald Trump. The 18-time Grand Slam singles champion and Czech American supposedly said, "Respect is earned, not given."

For example, on June 26, a user managing the McGill Media Facebook page posted (archived) the meme quoting Trump as saying, "You have to respect the president. If you don't respect the president, you're going to have a problem." The meme alleged Navratilova "fired back" at Trump with her "pointed rebuke."

(McGill Media accessed via Facebook)

Other users shared McGill Media's meme, for example on Bluesky (archived), Threads (archived) and X (archived). Snopes readers also searched for information, with one user asking, "Did Martina Navratilova fire back at Trump about respect?"

In short, internet users correctly attributed the words to Navratilova, although it's important to note that she posted them on social media rather than saying them directly to Trump in person. She responded to a video showing Trump making his remarks on X (archived), where she had previously posted the same thought at least four other times. The meme lacked context for when and where Navratilova and Trump made their comments, as well as the context of Trump's words — all explained later in this article.

Snopes emailed McGill Media and messaged Navratilova to ask if they would like to share further comment. We also emailed the White House to ask whether the Trump administration wished to respond to Navratilova, as well as to request an explanation for seemingly unfounded comments Trump made about the recruitment of personnel working the military and emergency services in the lead-up to the quote in question. The facts about those statements appear below.

Context

Trump's remarks originated from a speech he delivered during an evangelical advocacy conference on June 26. The conference took place at the Washington Hilton — the site of an alleged attempt to assassinate Trump just two months earlier.

During the speech, Trump falsely said "you could not get anybody to join" military branches and, without providing evidence, took full credit for raising recruitment numbers after shortfalls during the initial years of former President Joe Biden's term.

Trump preceded his "respect the president" comments as follows (bolded emphasis ours):

And something that's so exciting, the recruitment. You know, if you go back a year and a half, two years ago, you could not get anybody to join the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Coast Guard, Space Force. You couldn't get anybody to join. They had tremendous recruitment problems but now recruitment in every branch of our military is setting records. 18 months ago, we had tremendous shortages and we couldn't fill them up. We were never going to fill them up. That included police and firemen. We couldn't get policemen and women. We couldn't get firemen and women. Anything with a uniform because they were ashamed of our country because we had people that were not respected. You have to respect the president. If you don't respect the president, you're going to have a problem. Going to have a problem. They had no respect.

For the fiscal year 2024 — a year in which Biden was in office during all 12 months — the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marines, Navy and Space Force all reported meeting or exceeding recruitment goals. (Fiscal year 2024 spanned Oct. 1, 2023, through Sept. 30, 2024.)

The Associated Press reported that potential reasons for recruitment shortfalls occurring during the early years of Biden's term were the COVID-19 pandemic, COVID-19 vaccination requirements and competition with lucrative private-sector job offers, as well as declining trust in the government and military.

Surveys reportedly show an increase in the number of sworn police officers in 2025 and a modest decrease in the total number of firefighters in recent decades, primarily driven by a decrease in the number of volunteer firefighters that allegedly continued into 2025.

Trump's quoted remarks begin at the 42:37 mark in this YouTube video:

For further reading, we previously examined rumors about Trump falling asleep on camera.