President Trump\u2019s executive order to formally change the Department of Defense to the Department of War was met on Friday with enthusiasm from some on the right, but largely elicited skepticism on the left and concerns about the steep cost from former officials. <\/p>\n
Trump framed the rebrand as a signal of American strength that will send a message of \u201cvictory\u201d to America’s allies and adversaries alike.<\/p>\n
Now Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said that the name change represented a new focus on \u201cmaximum lethality, not tepid legality\u201d at the Pentagon.<\/p>\n
\u201cViolent effect, not politically correct,\u201d he said during the press conference alongside Trump. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna raise up warriors. Not just defenders.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hegseth shared a video<\/a> on social media showing workers taking down \u201cSecretary of Defense\u201d signage and in its place putting up his new title as secretary of war. His social media profiles also quickly shifted to describe him as \u201cSecretary of War.\u201d<\/p>\n But in the greater Capitol area, some weren’t nearly as enthused, with some complaining the change will cost the department millions of dollars for an effort deemed largely symbolic.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s very, very costly,\u201d said retired Col. Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, estimating that the effort will cost hundreds of millions of dollars. <\/p>\n \u201cWhatever is displayed \u2014 from stationary to actual monuments and such \u2014 they’ll have to be recarved, reinscribed, you’re talking about millions of dollars being spent on a name change,\u201d he told The Hill.<\/p>\n House Armed Services Committee ranking member Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) had a more blunt assessment.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to adequately plumb the depths of the stupidity of everything that goes into this. Changing the word \u2018defense\u2019 to \u2018war,\u2019 what signal does it send? Absolutely freaking nothing. It makes literally no difference,\u201d Smith said on NBC\u2019s Meet the Press NOW.<\/p>\n Smith pointed to the meeting of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in China earlier this week, a gathering that has worried the Western world. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat world are we living in that this is our president, this is what he thinks is important, while Xi and Putin and Kim Jong Un . . .are meeting. This is the answer to that?\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Darren Soto (D-Fla.) poked fun at Trump over the change in relation to the president\u2019s recent campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize. <\/p>\n \u201cTrump is begging for the Nobel Peace Prize. This should cinch it for him right?\u201d he wrote on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n On the other side of the aisle, Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) told NewsNation\u2019s Blake Burman that the mission will remain the same despite the rebrand.<\/p>\n \u201cThe world is unstable. We have villains out there \u2014 Putin and North Korea and Iran being probably the top three,\u201d Zinke said. \u201cThere\u2019s a projection of power the United States has to have.\u201d<\/p>\n Sen. Mitch McConnell <\/a>(R-Ky.), the chair of the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, challenged Trump to implement a bigger increase in the Pentagon\u2019s budget to deter threats from the likes of China, Russia and other adversaries.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we call it the Department of War, we\u2019d better equip the military to actually prevent and win wars. Can\u2019t preserve American primacy if we\u2019re unwilling to spend substantially more on our military than [former Presidents] Carter or Biden,\u201d McConnell said in a post on social platform X<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018Peace through strength\u2019 requires investment, not just rebranding,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Despite the executive order, Trump will still need Congress to officially rename the Defense Department to the president\u2019s intended new moniker. A few of his Republican allies in Congress are already on top of it<\/a>, with Sen. Rick Scott (Fla.) and Sen. Mike Lee (Utah) leading the effort in the upper chamber and introducing a War Department renaming bill. <\/p>\n