FORT BRAGG, NC — President Donald Trump says he’s restoring the names of military bases that the U.S. changed because they paid tribute to Confederate soldiers.
Delivering remarks at Fort Bragg, which had been designated Fort Liberty before his administration reverted the installation to its previous name, Trump said the Pentagon planned to rename seven other bases.
“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. We won a lot of battles out of those forts — it’s no time to change,” Trump said. “And I’m superstitious, you know, I like to keep it going right.”
Trump has long sought to keep the original base names in place. He vetoed legislation at the end of his first term, in 2020, that authorized the creation of an independent commission to recommend name changes. Congress repassed the bill, which came in the wake of racial justice protests, with bipartisan support.
The Department of Defense restored the names of two military bases upon Trump’s return to office — Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, N.C. and Fort Benning in Georgia, which was briefly called Fort Moore. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth skirted the commission by finding soldiers from later wars who shared a surname with the once-honored Confederates.
More: Confederate names are being scrubbed from US military bases. The list of ideas to replace them is 30,000 deep.
Retired Army Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule, who was the vice chair of the commission, said Trump is “overturning the will of the American people through their elected representatives who set up the Naming Commission,” which selected “true American heroes who fought for our great nation and reflect the best of our values.”
The retired one-star general, who is the former head of the history department at the United States Military Academy at West Point, said Confederate soldiers “chose treason to preserve and expand human bondage. They represent the worst of America.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump returns to Confederate base names
