Trump reverses Army base names in latest DEI purge
President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he plans to revert the names of seven major Army bases back to the Confederate generals for which they were originally named.
'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 said. 'We won a lot of battles out of those forts, it's no time to change.'
Trump's announcement, during a speech to soldiers at Fort Bragg, follows Biden-administration era alterations in 2023 that changed the installation names to honor new, non-Confederate individuals. Those included changing Fort Hood to Fort Cavazos, for the Army's first four-star Hispanic general.
The Army previously redesignated Fort Liberty, previously known as Fort Bragg, to its original name, but honoring Private First Class Roland L. Bragg, a World War II hero instead of the Confederate general Braxton Bragg. The service also redesignated Fort Moore, after Gen. Hal Moore and his wife Julia Compton Moore, for Fred G. Benning, who won the Distinguished Service Cross during World War I.
The Army is taking the same approach for the bases tapped for renaming on Tuesday, finding award-winning soldiers with the same last names as the Confederate generals to name the bases after, according to a statement released by the service after the president's speech.
The president gave no timeline for the name changes and it was not immediately clear whether the Army's bases would be renamed after Confederate generals or soldiers from different eras. One army official, granted anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak, said they were caught off guard by the rapid-fire developments, which could take months to implement.The Army did not immediately respond to POLITICO's request for comment.
Though the Trump administration insisted the redesignations were in-line with laws that prevent the Pentagon from naming bases after Confederate leaders or battles, Ty Seidule, a retired Army brigadier general who was the vice chair of the Congressional Naming Commission, which is tasked with relabeling bases and U.S. military assets, said that Trump's decision went against the spirit of the new rule enacted after the George Floyd protests.
'The bottom line is he's choosing surname over service,' said Seidule, who's now a visiting professor at Hamilton College. 'It is breaking the spirit of a law that was created by the will of the American people through their elected representatives.'
Seidule said that the commission, which was made up of three Republicans, one Democrat and four retired flag officers, spent 20 months seeking input from the public and got 33,000 responses to change the names of Army bases and other installations and assets named after Confederates, including several U.S. Navy ships.
But he said the decision still reflected that the Trump administration 'realizes that Confederates chose treason to preserve slavery, and they are unworthy of having bases named for them in America in 2025.'
On Tuesday, Trump criticized Biden at several points during his speech, which was full of asides about immigration, transgender Americans and the spending bill currently being debated in Congress.
His political comments in front of hundreds of soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division led to a smattering of boos from the mostly uniformed audience when he criticized former President Joe Biden. Audience members also jeered when Trump mentioned California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whom the president clashed with over protests in California that were sparked by the Trump administration's immigration raids. Presidents normally avoid giving political speeches to military personnel.
'Do you think this crowd would have showed up for Biden,' Trump said at one point in his remarks. 'I don't think so.'
'We will liberate Los Angeles and make it free, clean and safe again,' Trump said, claiming parts of the city are under the control of international criminal gangs. The president has ordered 4,000 California National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines to Los Angeles, though so far only about 300 guardsmen have entered the city.
The Marines are positioned outside Los Angeles, where they're undergoing training on crowd control, said one defense official who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The move to rename Army bases comes just days after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth moved to relabel a Navy vessel named after gay rights activist Harvey Milk as well as other ships named after civil rights leaders and women.
Seidule, the retired Army brigadier general who served on the Biden-era naming commission, said that Trump's decision creates the risk that future administrations could take turns renaming the Army's bases.
'What happens if some other administration would name something after someone that one party thinks is just absolutely beyond the pale,' said Seidule. 'I think that this could absolutely be a tennis match.'
Sam Skove contributed to this report.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
USA Today
28 minutes ago
- USA Today
Trump's past feuds don't bode well for Elon Musk
Trump's past feuds don't bode well for Elon Musk Show Caption Hide Caption President Trump gives his thoughts on Elon Musk amid clash on bill President Donald Trump responded to Elon Musk's criticism of his "big, beautiful bill" with disappointment as Musk responded on X. WASHINGTON − If history is any guide, and there is a lot of history, the explosive new falling-out between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk is not going to end well for the former White House adviser and world's richest man. The political battlefield is littered with the scorched remains of some of Trump's former allies who picked a fight with him or were on the receiving end of one. Lawyer Michael Cohen. Political adviser Steve Bannon. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. John Bolton, John Kelly and Chris Christie, to name just a few. 'If what happened to me is any indication of how they handle these matters, then Elon is going to get decimated,' said Cohen, the former long-term Trump lawyer and fixer who once said he'd 'take a bullet' for his boss. Musk, he said, "just doesn't understand how to fight this type of political guerrilla warfare." 'They're going to take his money, they're going to shutter his businesses, and they're going to either incarcerate or deport him,' Cohen said. 'He's probably got the White House working overtime already, as we speak, figuring out how to close his whole damn thing down.' Cohen had perhaps the most spectacular blowup, until now, with Trump. He served time in prison after Trump threw him under the bus by denying any knowledge of pre-election payments Cohen made to a porn actress to keep her alleged tryst with Trump quiet before the 2016 election. More: President Trump threatens Elon Musk's billions in government contracts as alliance craters Cohen felt so betrayed by Trump that he titled his memoir 'Disloyal,' but the Trump administration tried to block its publication. Cohen ultimately fought back, becoming a star witness for the government in the state 'hush money' case and helped get Trump convicted by a Manhattan jury. More: Impeachment? Deportation? Crazy? 6 takeaways from the wild feud between Trump and Elon Musk Some suffered similar legal attacks and other slings and arrows, including Trump taunts and his trademark nasty nicknames. Trump vilified others, casting them into the political wilderness with his MAGA base. When Sessions recused himself from the Justice Department's investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, Trump savaged him, calling his appointment a 'mistake' and lobbing other epithets. Sessions resigned under pressure in 2018. When he tried to resurrect his political career by running for his old Senate seat in Alabama, Trump endorsed his opponent, who won the GOP primary. After firing Tillerson, Trump called the former ExxonMobil chief lazy and 'dumb as a rock.' Trump still taunts Christie, an early supporter and 2016 transition chief, especially about his weight. Trump also had a falling-out with Bannon, who was instrumental in delivering his presidential victory in 2016 and then joined the White House as special adviser. 'Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency,' Trump said in 2018, a year after Bannon's ouster from the White House. 'When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind.' Trump's Justice Department even indicted Bannon in 2020 for fraud, though the president pardoned him before leaving office. One of Trump's biggest feuds was with Bolton, whom he fired as his national security adviser in 2019. Trump used every means possible to prevent Bolton's book, 'The Room Where it Happened,' from being published, Bolton told USA TODAY on June 5. That included having the U.S. government sue his publisher on the false premise that Bolton violated a nondisclosure agreement and was leaking classified information, Bolton said. Bolton said Musk is unlike most others who have crossed swords with Trump in that he has unlimited amounts of money and control of a powerful social media platform in X to help shape the narrative. Musk also has billions in government contracts that even a vindictive Trump would have a hard time killing, as he threatened to do June 5, without significant legal challenges. Even so, Bolton said, "It's going to end up like most mud fights do, with both of them worse off. The question is how much worse the country is going to be off."
Yahoo
30 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Pentagon chief confronts barrage of tough questions in Senate committee, including ones about Ukraine
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was challenged with a barrage of hard-hitting questions, including on Ukraine, during a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the armed forces held on 11 June. Source: The Hill, as reported by European Pravda Details: Republican senators from the subcommittee on the armed forces bombarded Hegseth with questions on Wednesday 11 June. Mitch McConnell, one of three Republicans who initially opposed Hegseth's appointment, "grilled" him on budgetary issues and also warned against showing leniency towards Russia in attempts to end the Russo-Ukrainian war. McConnell said that US allies are "wondering whether we're in the middle of brokering what appears to be allowing the Russians to define victory". "I think victory is defined by the people who have to live there – the Ukrainians," he stressed and directly asked Hegseth whose side Trump's administration is on. "America's reputation is on the line. Will we defend Democratic allies against authoritarian aggressors?" he asked. "We don't want a headline at the end of this conflict that says Russia wins and America loses." Later, Senator Lindsey Graham asked Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whether he believed that Russian leader Vladimir Putin would stop if he got what he wanted in Ukraine. Caine said he does not "believe he is" and Hegseth responded that it "remains to be seen". "Well, he says he's not. This is the '30s all over," Graham then sharply countered him. Background: This week, Hegseth said that Trump's administration plans to reduce the budget for security assistance to Ukraine. The Trump administration has not provided new military aid to Ukraine since taking office, although weapons from previously approved packages under the prior administration continue to arrive. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
Yahoo
30 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Commentary: The US must restrain itself from being too involved in Syria's redevelopment
When President Donald Trump met Syria's new president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, for the first time last month, he came away impressed with the man's vision, stamina and looks. 'Young, attractive guy, tough guy,' Trump told reporters after the session. 'Strong past, very strong past. … He's got a real shot at holding it together.' Trump followed up the compliments with a policy change that reverberated throughout the Middle East: a suspension of the U.S. sanctions regime on Syria, which the White House argued was a necessary prerequisite to giving the country a chance to turn the page from more than a half-century of Assad family dictatorship. The United States, however, continues to have certain expectations for the new, evolving Syrian government. Washington's asks boil down to three items: combating the Islamic State militant group, consolidating its authority to prevent chaos, and respecting the rights of ethnic and sectarian minorities in the country, some of whom, like the Kurds in Eastern Syria, have been long-standing U.S. partners. The Trump administration also expects al-Sharaa to clamp down on Palestinian militant groups that have traditionally used Syrian soil as a base of operations, and Trump eventually wants Damascus to join the Abraham Accords, which would normalize relations between Israel and Syria. The results thus far have been mixed, depending on the issue. But in the Middle East, a mixed verdict is often the best that one can hope for. On combating Islamic State, the new Syrian government has met expectations so far. This wasn't inevitable when al-Sharaa ascended to power in December. His history sowed doubt among many U.S. national security officials about what could be accomplished on the counterterrorism front. Twenty years ago, al-Sharaa was fighting with al-Qaida in Iraq and spent time as a prisoner under U.S. military custody. When Syria erupted into civil war in 2011, he traveled to the country and established an al-Qaida affiliate there, leading Washington to place a big bounty on his head. Yet al-Sharaa eventually struck out on his own. He distanced his group from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Islamic State's first so-called emir, ditched the al-Qaida name and turned his organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, into one seeking to liberate Syria, not conduct global jihad. While HTS was still an extremely conservative outfit, al-Sharaa sought to transform it into a de facto government-in-waiting, and for the most part, it worked — HTS ruled over most of Idlib province in northwestern Syria for the duration of Syria's civil war. Ever since he routed Assad's forces, al-Sharaa has sought to moderate himself further. The former al-Qaida prisoner has spent the last six months ditching his fatigues for Western-style suits and ingratiating himself with the likes of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, deep-pocketed countries that could prove extremely useful for the new but cash-strapped Syrian government. Al-Sharaa also has made it a point to burnish his credentials in the West, betting that promises to protect Syria's diverse communities, institute a market economy and unite the nation after nearly 14 years of war would convince Washington, Paris and London to explore a new relationship. The United States and many of its allies in Europe have taken al-Sharaa up on the offer. U.S. officials view the new Syrian administration as an opportunity to not only wipe the slate clean on decades of adversarial ties with Damascus but to also dilute the influence of Iran and Russia, its historic backers. Syria under Assad used to be one of Tehran's most important pieces on the Middle East chessboard, a country that provided Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps with a way station to send weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon. With Assad out and al-Sharaa in, Syria is no longer an Iranian proxy. The further the new Syrian authorities ostracize Iran, the more support it will likely receive from the Americans. Of course, it's not all sunshine and roses for Syria. While Washington is guardedly optimistic about the HTS-led administration's commitment to keeping a boot on Islamic State's neck — if only because it's in al-Sharaa's own interest to do so — it remains unclear whether the country's multiple ethnic and sectarian communities can be reconciled. The long civil war produced an overwhelming sense of mistrust, fear and animosity between Sunnis and Alawites, who compose approximately 10% of Syria's population but held many of the senior military, political and intelligence posts under the former regime. In one especially brutal atrocity last March, hard-line jihadists supposedly outside the Syrian government's control rampaged through Alawite villages along Syria's Mediterranean coast, killing hundreds of civilians, in retaliation for Assad loyalists attacking Syrian army positions. The attack lasted for days and put a bright spotlight on al-Sharaa and his ability to actually implement the promises of peace and inclusion he has made since stepping into the presidential palace. Can Syria emerge from the ashes? It's a loaded question with no definitive answer at this point in time. The United States, though, needs to restrain itself from the urge of becoming too overinvolved in the country's political development. Time and again, Washington has allowed hubris to guide its actions, lecturing others about how to structure their politics and pretending it has all the answers. Most of the time, our ambitions outweigh our capacity to fulfill them. At worst, we create new problems and burdens on the states we purportedly wish to help. So as the Trump administration continues to monitor Syria's evolution, it must take care to distinguish the necessary from the ideal. A democratic utopia in the heart of the Middle East is the ideal; a government willing and able to keep Islamic State in check is the prize. _____ Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune. _____
