Trump to sign executive order renaming department to its post-World War II name
President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order renaming the Department of Defense, the arm of the federal government that oversees the U.S.'s armed forces, back to the Department of War on Friday.
As news about the upcoming executive order made headlines on Thursday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shared a Fox News post on X about the news and captioned it with, "DEPARTMENT OF WAR."
Hegseth also confirmed the name change while speaking with reporters at Fort Benning in Georgia on Thursday, CNN reported.
"I would say stand by tomorrow," Hegseth said. "It's something that — words matter. Titles matter. Cultures matter. And George Washington founded the War Department. We'll see."
The Republican president can't formally change the name without legislation, which his administration would request from Congress.
In the meantime, Trump will authorize the Pentagon to use "secondary titles" so the department can go by its original name.
In August, Trump told reporters that "everybody likes that we had an unbelievable history of victory when it was the Department of War. Then we changed it to Department of Defense."
When confronted with the possibility that making the name change would require an act of Congress, Trump told reporters that "we're just going to do it."
"I'm sure Congress will go along if we need that," he added.
The department was previously known as the Department of War, established by President George Washington on Aug. 7, 1789, according to the Department of Defense's website .
Washington nominated his military aide from the American Revolution, Henry Knox, as the first Secretary of War.
On Aug. 10, 1949, after the end of World War II and during Harry S Truman's presidency, the National Security Act was amended to rename the Department of War to the Department of Defense. The amendment also established a chairman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Trump's wish to rename the department would follow a trend of his second administration in renaming different aspects of the United States. The day Trump returned to the White House, on Jan. 20, he signed an executive order renaming Denali in Alaska back to Mount McKinley.
That same day, Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America." Trump cited its economic and geological importance to the United States and called it "an integral asset to our once burgeoning Nation and has remained an indelible part of America."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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