Trump rejects renaming military bases paying tribute to Confederate generals
President Donald Trump responded to waves of demonstrations for racial justice Wednesday by picking a fight over the legacy of the Confederacy, further inflaming the nation’s culture war at a time when tensions were already high after the killing of George Floyd and widespread street protests against police brutality.
On the same day that Floyd’s brother pleaded with Congress to tackle racism in the United States, Trump publicly slapped down the Pentagon for considering renaming Army bases named after Confederate officers who fought against the Union during the Civil War. The White House said the president would go so far as to veto the annual defense authorization bill if Congress tried to force his hand.
The president positioned himself even more firmly against the growing movement for change that has emerged since Floyd’s death in the custody of a white Minneapolis police officer who pressed a knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes.
At the Capitol, Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for the removal of 11 remaining statues of Confederate figures, including Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, days after Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia vowed to remove the statue of Lee from the storied Monument Avenue in Richmond, the onetime Confederate capital. Other similar symbols were being removed elsewhere in the country.
But the president expressed no sympathy for the idea of renaming the 10 Army bases that honor Confederate generals who were traitors to the United States and fought against the U.S. military to defend the slaveholding South. Among them are Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas and Fort Benning in Georgia.
“The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars,” Trump wrote in a string of Twitter messages. “Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations. Our history as the Greatest Nation in the World will not be tampered with. Respect our Military!”
Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, discussed coming up with what officials called a “comprehensive plan” to address Army base names, Confederate symbols on military installations and the alienation that many service members who are people of color say they have come to feel in a military where most of their senior leaders are white men.
But Trump grew upset when he saw articles about the possibility of renaming bases, according to two administration officials.
Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, said renaming the bases would be “an insult” to the troops who served there and then were sent off to combat zones overseas. “To tell them that what they left was inherently a racist institution because of a name, that’s unacceptable to the president, and rightfully so,” she said.