President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Friday that will change the name of the Defense Department to the Department of War, a White House official told CNN.
It’s a move that the president and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have previewed in recent days, including Trump in the Oval Office last week when he told reporters his administration was going to “change the name.”
“We call it the Department of Defense, but between us, I think we’re gonna change the name,” the president told reporters on August 25.
“We won the World War 1, World War 2 – it was called the Department of War, and to me, that’s really what it is. Defense is a part of that, but I have a feeling we’re gonna be changing.”
The news about Friday’s order was first reported by Fox News.
While at Fort Benning on Thursday, Hegseth indicated the name change would be coming on Friday.
“I would say standby tomorrow,” Hegseth said when asked about a potential change. “It’s something that — words matter. Titles matter. Cultures matter. And George Washington founded the War Department. We’ll see.”
The last time the department’s name was changed took an act of Congress. CNN has reached out to the White House about how it would change the name this time.
The Department of War, as it as once called, was first established by President George Washington when he founded the country’s Army. But the name was later changed in 1949 as part of a broader reorganization of the military under President Harry Truman.
Truman signed the National Security Act in 1947, which merged the Department of the Navy, the newly created Department of the Air Force, and the Department of the Army — previously the Department of War, according to the Army — into one organization called the National Military Establishment, under the civilian secretary of defense. The National Military Establishment was renamed the Department of Defense in August 1949.
The National Security Act also established the Joint Chiefs of Staff as an organization to advise the president on military planning and strategy.
The effort to rename the Pentagon follows a number of similar steps by Hegseth to change the names of bases and ships. He reversed a Biden-era decision that had removed Confederate-era names of bases like Fort Bragg and Fort Hood, reverting to those titles but officially naming them after different individuals with the same names.
In June, Hegseth also ordered the renaming of an oiler ship named after gay rights activist and Navy veteran Harvey Milk.
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