President Donald Trump will follow through on his plan to revert the Department of Defense back to its former name, Department of War.
Trump plans to sign an executive order on Friday to rebrand the Department of Defense, a senior administration official told Politico. Trump has said he wants a more neutral name, arguing that "defense" in the name doesn't account for "offense."
“It used to be called the Department of War, and it had a stronger sound. And, as you know, we won World War I, we won World War II, we won everything. Now we have the Department of Defense. We’re defenders,” Trump previously said. “I don’t know. If you people want to, standing behind me, if you take a little vote, if you want to change it back to what it was where we used to win wars all the time, that’s okay with me.”
Politico noted that renaming federal agencies likely requires an act of Congress, though Republicans control both chambers of Congress. Even so, the report noted that Trump's White House seeks alternatives to avoid such a vote.
The Department of Defense was renamed in 1949. The Department of War existed from 1789 to 1947.