&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "'Defense is too defensive': Trump wants to rename Department of Defense to 'Department of War'. Here's why")
US President Donald Trump expressed his desire to change the name of the US defence department on Monday (August 25). He said for the third time today that he plans to rebrand the “Department of Defense” by returning to the pre-1947 name, the “Department of War”.
“So Pete, you started off by saying the ‘Department of Defense’, and somehow it didn’t sound good to me, you know, it didn’t sound good. ‘Defense’ what are we ‘defense’, why are we ‘defense’? So it used to be called the ‘Department of War’ and it had a stronger sound”, the president said.
He then told the handful of officials lined up behind him – namely: JD Vance, the vice-president; Pam Bondi, the attorney general; Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary; Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff; Terry Cole, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration; and Hegseth – “if you people want to, standing behind me, if you take a little vote and you want to change it back to what it was when we used to win wars all the time, that’s okay with me”.
Later, while talking alongside the president of South Korea, Lee Jae Myung, Trump said, “Pete Hegseth has been incredible with the, as I call it, the ‘Department of War’. You know, we call it the ‘Department of Defense’, but, between us, I think we’re going to change the name."
The American president even gave his explanation for the name change, saying, “We won the World War I, World War II, it was called the ‘Department of War’. And to me, that’s really what it is."
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“It just to me, seems like a just a much more appropriate… the other is, ‘Defense is too defensive. And we want to be defensive, but we want to be offensive, too if we have to be. So, it just sounded to me better," Trump said.
When reporters asked him, "On the Department of War, how do you plan to do that? It requires an act of Congress to rename the Defense Department..."
Trump replied, "We're just going to do it. I'm sure Congress will go along if we need that...Defense is too defensive. We want to be defensive, but we want to be offensive, too if we have to be."
