JUST IN: President Trump to Formally Rename the Department of Defense TOMORROW | JP
President Trump will formally restore the Department of Defense to its original name — the Department of War.
He is set to sign an executive order on Friday that will instruct Pete Hegseth to take action to make the name change permanent.
Check out the news:
President Trump will sign an executive order on Friday restoring the Department of Defense to its original name, the Department of War.
Follow: @AFpost pic.twitter.com/em5UHDWhIj
— AF Post (@AFpost) September 4, 2025
The name change will also reflect in Pete Hegseth’s title.
He will go from being the Secretary of Defense to the Secretary of War!
🚨BREAKING: President Trump will sign an executive order TOMORROW renaming the Department of Defense the “Department of War”, restoring its original name.
Pete Hegseth will be the Secretary of WAR 🔥 pic.twitter.com/9Od5RlSzV3
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 4, 2025
Up until the late 1940s, America called the Department of War by that name.
The New York Post provided some background:
The War Department was known as such from 1789 to 1947, when the Army and Air Force departments were split by an act of Congress to form the National Military Executive with the already-existing Navy Department.
The National Military Executive was dubbed the Department of Defense two years later, in 1949.
“The United States military is the strongest and most lethal fighting force in the world, and the President believes this Department should have a name that reflects its unmatched power and readiness to protect national interests,” read a White House fact sheet on the upcoming order.
The White House said the name change will project “strength and resolve” and advance Trump’s “peace through strength” mission.
Both President Trump and Pete Hegseth have been wanting to return to the original name for quite awhile.
And now is the perfect time to do so, with Hegseth restoring the warrior spirit at the Department.
Fox News reported:
A White House official confirmed to Fox News Digital Thursday that Trump would roll out the name change Friday. The executive order calls for using the Department of War as a secondary title for the Department of Defense, along with phrases like “secretary of war” for Hegseth, according to a White House fact sheet.
The order also instructs Hegseth to propose both legislative and executive actions to make the name permanently U.S. Department of War.
Likewise, implementing the order will require modifications to public-facing websites and office signage at the Pentagon, including renaming the public affairs briefing room the “Pentagon War Annex,” according to a White House official. Other longer-term projects also are in the works, the official said.
Trump signaled in recent days the change was imminent.
“Everybody likes that we had an unbelievable history of victory when it was Department of War,” Trump told reporters Aug. 25. “Then we changed it to Department of Defense.”
Hegseth, who Trump already has referred to on occasion as the “secretary of war,” also expressed similar sentiments and said the change would reflect a broader, cultural shift within the Pentagon.
“We won WWI, and we won WWII, not with the Department of Defense, but with a War Department, with the Department of War,” Hegseth said in an interview Wednesday with “Fox & Friends.” “As the president has said, we’re not just defense, we’re offense.
“We’ve reestablished at the Department the warrior ethos. We want warriors, folks that understand how to exact lethality on the enemy,” he said. “We don’t want endless contingencies and just playing defense. We think words and names and titles matter. So, we’re working with the White House and the president on it. Stand by.”
What are your thoughts?
Do you support this?