'If you need to carry a big sign': Trump's major rebrand seen as a 'sign of weakness'

A conservative commentator's argument was belittled by another panelist after he defended President Donald Trump's decision to rename the Department of Defense.

The president intends to sign an executive order changing the agency's name to the Department of War, which it had been called from 1789 until its 1947 reorganization, and panelists on "CNN This Morning" debated the purpose and meaning of Trump's plans – which he might not even be able to do without congressional action.

"We know he cares deeply about branding, and as he said, he wants to come off as more offensive and more strong and mightier," said journalist Eugene Scott. "But I think it also draws attention to the fact that this president campaigned promising to end or decrease America's involvement in a number of global conflicts and just bringing people's attention to the word 'war,' I think, will bring their attention to the fact that he hasn't actually done that, and some things have, in fact, gotten worse in terms of America's involvement in wars."

New York Times podcast host Lulu Garcia-Navarro pointed out that Trump's biggest troop deployments so far have been in American cities, which made her question with whom the president believed he was at war, but her conservative foil Rob Bluey expressed excitement about the department's rebrand.

"It was a big topic at the National Conservatism Conference this week, not the name change, but the issue that Eugene talks about and the fact that this president is different than past Republicans in that he does want to be seen as the peace president," Bluey said, "and, I mean, that is clear from the first six months in office. I think it's why you have a move afoot on Capitol Hill with Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Congressman Greg Steube (R-FL) to put this in legislation and make this name change official. Obviously, it's one of those things that I think that this president wants to make sure that he leaves his mark, and this is one way that he's going to try to do it."

Host Audie Cornish pointed out the mixed message between the Department of War and Trump's transparent thirst for a Nobel Peace Prize, but Bluey argued that a more aggressive-sounding name might help improve national security.

"Perhaps, but I think at the same time, that deterrence that you talked about in terms of his peace-through-strength doctrine is what he's going for," said Bluey, executive editor of The Heritage Foundation's Daily Caller website. "We don't want to enter into war, but maybe it is the deterrent that the message that will send to those adversaries in the world, whether it be Russia or China, they want to provoke a war that may have them think twice."

Garcia-Navarro was far from persuaded by that argument.

"One could argue that this is a sign of weakness and not a sign of strength," she said. "I mean, if you need to carry a big sign saying, 'We are the Department of War and we will mess you up,' is that really kind of showing strength, and when we've had a long period in the United States since the end of World War II, where there has been pretty much peace, stability and prosperity, and so I don't know that the name change is exactly might be signaling the thing that he wants to be signaling. However, at the end of the day, war, defense – it's still soldiers, boots on the ground. It does what it does."

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