By KONSTANTIN TOROPIN and CHRIS MEGERIAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump plans to signal an govt order Friday to rebrand the Division of Protection because the Division of Conflict, his newest effort to mission a picture of toughness for America’s navy.
The Republican president can’t formally change the title with out laws, which his administration would request from Congress. Within the meantime, Trump will authorize the Pentagon to make use of “secondary titles” so the division can go by its authentic title.
The plans had been disclosed by a White Home official, who requested anonymity forward of the general public announcement, and detailed in a White Home truth sheet.
The Division of Conflict was created in 1789, the identical yr that the U.S. Structure took impact. It was renamed by regulation in 1947, two years after the top of World Conflict II.
Trump and Hegseth have lengthy talked about altering the title, and Hegseth even created a social media ballot on the subject in March.
Since then, he has hinted that his title as protection secretary will not be everlasting at a number of public occasions, together with a speech at Fort Benning, Georgia, on Thursday. He instructed an auditorium stuffed with troopers that it “may be a slightly different title tomorrow.”
In August, Trump instructed reporters that “everybody likes that we had an unbelievable history of victory when it was Department of War. Then we changed it to Department of Defense.”
When confronted with the chance that making the title change would require an act of Congress, Trump instructed reporters that “we’re just going to do it.”
“I’m sure Congress will go along if we need that,” he added.
The transfer is simply the newest in an extended line of cultural adjustments Hegseth has made to the Pentagon since taking workplace originally of the yr.
Early in his tenure, Hegseth pushed exhausting to get rid of what he noticed because the impacts of “woke culture” on the navy by not solely ridding the division of variety packages however scrubbing libraries and web sites of fabric deemed to be divisive.
The end result was the elimination and assessment of tons of of books within the navy academies, which ended up together with titles on the Holocaust and a Maya Angelou memoir. It additionally resulted within the elimination off 1000’s of internet sites honoring contributions by ladies and minority teams.
“I think the president and the secretary have been very clear on this — that anybody that says in the Department of Defense that diversity is our strength is, is frankly, incorrect,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell instructed reporters in March.
Hegseth has additionally presided over the elimination of all transgender troops from the navy following an govt order from Trump by a course of that some have described as “dehumanizing” or “open cruelty.”
Initially Printed: September 4, 2025 at 7:21 PM EDT
