Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said Friday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth looks “stupid as hell” for trying to rename military bases and resurrect honorifics for Confederate officers by using other soldiers as eponymous stand-ins.
The Pentagon announced in February it would partially restore the names of two military sites that were given new monikers during the Biden administration by honoring decorated veterans of World Wars I and II.
The North Carolina Army base that was renamed Fort Liberty in 2023 went back to being known as Fort Bragg in honor of World War II paratrooper Roland Bragg, instead of its original eponym, Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg. Fort Benning in Georgia, which was renamed Fort Moore in 2023, is now named in honor of decorated World War I veteran Cpl. Fred Benning, instead of Confederate Gen. Henry Benning.
“I think they’re trying to be too cute by Hegseth on this, saying, ‘Well, it’s Bragg, but it’s a different Bragg,’” Bacon told USA Today. “To me, it looks stupid as hell.”
President Trump announced in June that additional military base names would be changed to honor soldiers who shared names with their former Confederate honorees.
“For a little breaking news, we are also going to be restoring the names,” Trump told a North Carolina crowd last month while marking the Army’s 250th anniversary. “We won a lot of battles out of those forts … and I’m superstitious, you know, I like to keep it going.”
Congress approved legislation in 2021 to rename sites that had previously honored soldiers who fought against the U.S. in the Civil War.
Bacon, who announced last month he will not run for reelection next year, was one of two Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee who voted this week to block the Pentagon from using federal funds to rename military installations in honor of Confederate figures.
Bacon told The Hill he disagreed with the Pentagon’s push to revert to names that may sow division.
“Hegseth had an opportunity to embrace names universally loved,” he said.
Republicans and Democrats have overwhelmingly backed efforts to move away from Confederate-inspired names, Bacon added.
“The matter should be settled,” he said. “Congress should not get steamrolled here.”
The Pentagon didn’t immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment.
Trump vowed during a North Carolina campaign stop last fall that his administration would revert Fort Liberty to Fort Bragg.
Hegseth touted the renaming in a video posted to social media after signing the name-change memo earlier this year.
“That’s right. Bragg is back,” he said in the video.
Updated at 4:30 p.m. EDT.
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