Trump aims to restore confederate names to seven military bases
In February, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth (pictured) announced that it would be riverted to Fort Bragg, but would be named after a World War II hero, not the problematic Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg. 'For a little breaking news, we are also going to be restoring the names to Fort Pickett, Fort Hood, Fort Gordon, Fort Rucker, Fort Polk, Fort A.P. Hill and Fort Robert E. Lee,' Trump told the crowd Tuesday. 'We won a lot of battles out of those forts,' he continued. 'And I'm superstitious, I like to keep it going right? I'm very superstitious, we want to keep it going, so that's a big story, I just announced it today to you for the first time.'
Trump said he was pressured to wait and make the announcement during Saturday's parade marking his birthday and celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Army. 'I can't wait!' he said at Fort Bragg. 'I've got to talk to my friends here today.' The president's move makes good on a campaign promise he made, not in 2024, but in 2020. In the aftermath of George Floyd's death of Memorial Day weekend of 2020 and the 'Black Lives Matter' protests that sprung up from the incident, there were renewed calls to remove Confederate statues and names from public spaces.
Trump resisted those calls - instead backing the 'Blue Lives Matter' movement, a counter-protest on the American right. Still Congress decided to act and the name change for military bases was included in a large defense package that earned bipartisan support.
Even after he lost the election to Democratic nominee Joe Biden, he vetoed the military spending bill in December 2020 , which contained language to rename 10 bases originally named for Confederates. Congress - in another bipartisan vote - overrode Trump's veto. It's unclear why the president didn't mention Forts Beauregard and Benning in his announcement Tuesday, as they were both included in the defense spending bill.
The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Mail's request for comment. The process to rename the bases wrapped up in January 2023, during Biden's presidency - so Trump blamed his predecessor, despite members of his own party supporting the changes. A number of bases were renamed from Confederates to women and black Americans.
'The one and only Fort Bragg, the one and only Fort Bragg,' Trump said onstage Tuesday. 'But remember it was only that little brief moment that it wasn't called Fort Bragg. It was by the Biden administration. And we got it changed,' he touted. Fort Bragg, in the February change, was renamed after Roland L. Bragg, who the Pentagon described as a World War II fighter 'who earned the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his exceptional courage during the Battle of the Bulge.' The original 'Bragg' was Braxton Bragg, who was a slaveowner. He was also so inept that he helped the Confederacy lose the Civil War to U.S. forces.
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The Independent
13 minutes ago
- The Independent
MTG cashed in on ICE contractor's big win but Trump goes after ‘disgusting degenerate' Nancy Pelosi over stocks
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14 minutes ago
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The most suspect stock trades by politicians revealed including the Republican who can't STOP flipping shares
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31 minutes ago
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In an interview, he described an atmosphere of uncertainty in the swing district created by the looming benefit cuts, Trump's tariffs and his administration's freeze of research funding, which has affected the local Michigan State University. 'The concern goes back to the overall culture of fear and unknown, and that just is horrible for the economy, it's horrible for jobs, the auto industry. So, you know, Medicaid is just one of many symptoms of an out-of-touch Washington and how it impacts people's day-to-day lives,' he said. In California's Kern county, Democrats are gearing up for a campaign against David Valadao, a Republican congressman and resilient opponent whose district has one of the highest rates of Medicaid enrollment in the nation. Though he voted for Trump's bill after giving mixed messages about its cuts to Medicaid, the local Democratic party chair, Christian Romo, warned that their delayed impact could frustrate the party's efforts. 'This is going to devastate this community,' Romo said. But with the provisions not taking effect until after the election, 'will people actually feel the implications of that? No. So will they remember that Valadao voted yes on that bill? You know, it's up in the air, and we'll have to see.' Top congressional Democrats argue that even if the cuts themselves are delayed, voters will feel their disruptions coming. 'Companies are making decisions because they know there's going to be less revenue as a result of a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid, the largest Medicaid cut in history of this country,' said Pete Aguilar, the House Democratic caucus chair. 'So, healthcare premiums will rise, that will happen early, insurers will make these decisions as well, and hospitals are going to have to face difficult decisions on what their future looks like.' Christopher Nicholas, a veteran Republican political consultant based in Pennsylvania, where the DCCC is looking to oust four Republicans, warned that Democrats can't count on just the Medicaid cuts to get them back to the majority. 'As America continues to stratify, self-select into separate neighborhoods and communities, you're going to have a lot of those represented by Republicans that don't have as much exposure to the Medicaid program, and you're going to have lots of them represented by Democrats in more urban areas that have more exposure to the Medicaid program,' he said. 'I think Democrats are way out of over their skis, thinking that that alone will get them to the promised land next year.'
