Daily Mail: Tom Hanks snubbed from West Point event after Trump’s order

A West Point alumni event honoring Tom Hanks was scrapped on the day President Donald Trump officially changed the name of the Department of Defense back to the Department of War.

Trump explained Friday that he instituted the rebrand because the Pentagon got ‘very politically correct or wokey’ and the U.S. was not winning wars. 

That day, a West Point alumni group announced the cancelation of an awards ceremony that was meant to have taken place September 25 to garland Hanks, who is a veterans advocate but never served in the the military himself.

The prize he would have gotten was the Sylvanus Thayer Award, which the West Point Association of Graduates gives to non-alumni who ‘draw wholesome comparison’ to the military academy’s motto: ‘Duty, Honor, Country.’

Retired Army Col. Mark Bieger, the president and CEO of the organization, announced in an email to members that they were scuttling their tribute to Hanks – who was recently slammed on social media for portraying a Trump supporter as a dimwitted racist on Saturday Night Live

‘This decision allows the Academy to continue its focus on its core mission of preparing cadets to lead, fight, and win as officers in the world’s most lethal force, the United States Army,’ he wrote, according to the Washington Post

The president signed an executive order – his 200th – making the rebrand official on Friday afternoon, flanked by Pete Hegseth, now called the War Secretary, and the Chairman of Joint Chiefs, Gen. Dan ‘Razin’ Caine. 

The name change had been floated for weeks. 

‘It has to do with winning,’ Trump explained. ‘We should have won every war. We could have won every war. But we really chose to be very politically correct or wokey and we just fight forever.’  

‘We just fight to sort of tie,’ the commander-in-chief continued. ‘We never wanted to win wars. Every one of them we could have won easily with just a couple of little changes.’ 

‘We just didn’t fight to win. We didn’t lose anything, but we didn’t fight to win,’ the president added. 

The original War Department name lasted from 1789 to 1947, with President Harry S. Truman changing the name in the aftermath of World War II when he merged the Navy, Air Force and War Departments. 

‘And you know we had it,’ he said of the name. ‘And we won World War I, we won World War II, we won everything before and as I said, we won everything in between.’ 

As Trump was making the announcement, the department’s social media pages changed – at one point with the Pentagon’s X account calling it both the Department of War and the Department of Defense

The president was asked why bring back ‘war’ when he was publicly seeking a Nobel Peace Prize. 

‘Well I think I’ve gotten peace because of the fact that we’re strong,’ the president answered. 

Trump ran in 2024 on erasing ‘wokeness’ in the military. 

He’s done that in some ways by changing naming conventions. 

In December 2020, Trump vetoed a defense spending bill because it included provisions to change all the names of U.S. bases that were named after Confederate generals

The renaming process took place during President Joe Biden’s four years in office, but once Trump returned he immediately tried to get the names changed back. 

Hegseth announced just weeks into the administration that he Fort Liberty, a large base in eastern North Carolina, would revert back to Fort Bragg. 

The base was originally named Fort Bragg in 1918 after Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg.

That Bragg was a slaveowner – but he was also so inept that he helped the Confederacy lose the Civil War to U.S. forces.

In a Pentagon release in February, Fort Bragg will now be named after Roland L. Bragg.

A Pentagon spokesperson described Bragg as a World War II fighter ‘who earned the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his exceptional courage during the Battle of the Bulge.’

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-15072713/tom-hanks-snubbed-west-point-trump-department-war.html

Slingshot News: ‘That’s Why They Lost It’: Trump Admits He Relocated Space Command To Punish Colorado Over Mail-In Voting During Oval Office Tirade

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/that-s-why-they-lost-it-trump-admits-he-relocated-space-command-to-punish-colorado-over-mail-in-voting-during-oval-office-tirade/vi-AA1M3aCR

POLITICO: Duckworth says DHS ‘fled the base’ during visit by Democrats

Sen. Tammy Duckworth said Homeland Security officials “locked the doors” of the Great Lakes Naval Base.

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) said federal officials disappeared from a Navy base near Chicago on Friday after Democrats announced they would tour the facility ahead of the arrival of immigration officers.

In an interview with host Margaret Brennan on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Duckworth said when she joined fellow Illinois Democrats Sen. Dick Durbin and Rep. Brad Schneider for a tour of the Naval Station Great Lakes, Department of Homeland Security officials had given staff the day off, “locked the doors and left the base.”

“Basically, they fled the base,” Duckworth said. Naval Station Great Lakes, which opened in 1911, is the site for boot camp for Naval trainees.

Officials last week said that up to 300 ICE agents would be operating out of the Great Lakes Naval Base as President Donald Trump ramps up his efforts against Democratic-controlled sanctuary cities. Trump also said the administration will deploy the National Guard to the city, drawing outrage from Democrats including Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.

Ahead of the lawmakers’ trip to the base, Duckworth said, she and her colleagues asked DHS if they could come tour the facility to have a “better understanding of what your operations are.”

DHS officials, she said, replied no.

“This is not the action of someone that’s doing something legal or that they’re- that they’re proud of,” said Duckworth.

“We certainly have sent the administration multiple inquiries about what they are planning on doing. Who are they bringing into Chicago? Are they planning to bring the National Guard in? They’ve none of that. They’ve not even reached out to local law enforcement to try to coordinate,” she added. “And we’ve not gotten any communications or feedback from the administration, whatsoever.”

Navy officials that were on the base during the Democrats’ tour told them that the assistance they’ve been requested to provide so far is only office space for ICE, Duckworth added.

While it is unclear when ICE officials or the National Guard will be sent to Chicago, Trump on Saturday said his administration will go to “WAR” with the city of Chicago.

“Chicago [is] about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, referring to the Department of Defense’s planned name change.

Illinois officials quickly responded to the post, calling the president a “tyrant” and a “declaration of war.”

“I take what the President of the United States says very seriously, because that is the respect you have to give to the office,” Duckworth said on Sunday. “And if that’s what he’s declaring, then let me make it clear, it would be an illegal order to declare war on a major city, any city within the United States, by the President of the United States.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/07/duckworth-dhs-fled-naval-base-visit-00549536

Mirror US: Chicago fights back against Trump’s National Guard threats as NYC’s Mamdani issues warning

The Illinois governor called Donald Trump a ‘wannabe dictator,’ after earlier this month Trump claimed Americans might ‘like a dictator’

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani issued fiery statements opposing President Donald Trump’s escalating threats to deploy federal troops into the largely Democratic cities, a continuation of his weaponization of the government against his opponents.

Mamdani, asked about the idea of National Guard troops being sent to New York City, cautioned that the potential illegality of an act would not dissuade Trump from pursuing it. “The first thing is we have to prepare for the inevitability of that deployment,” he said. “We cannot try to convince ourselves that because something is illegal, Donald Trump will not do it.”

Pritzker, in response to a post from Trump threatening to sick his so-called “Department of War” on an American city, called Trump a “wannabe dictator.”

Trump on Saturday amplified his promises to send National Guard troops and immigration agents to Chicago by posting a parody image from “Apocalypse Now” featuring a ball of flames as helicopters zoom over the nation’s third-largest city, according to The Associated Press.

“I love the smell of deportations in the morning,” Trump wrote on his social media site. “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”

A rally and march formed in downtown Chicago Saturday evening against the increase in ICE operations, which were expected to begin that day. About 300 federal agents were using North Chicago’s Naval Station Great Lakes as a logistical hub for the operations.

While Trump has attributed the surge in immigration enforcement activity in Chicago and other blue cities to “out of control” dangerous criminals, his claims defy evidence, which show decreases in violent crime. In 2024, Chicago’s violent crime rate was down 11% compared with 2023 levels, and about half what it was in the years leading up to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the BBC.

Trump’s weekend post follows his repeated threats to add Chicago to the list of other Democratic-led cities he’s targeted for expanded federal enforcement. His administration is set to step up immigration enforcement in Chicago, as it did in Los Angeles, and deploy National Guard troops.

In addition to sending troops to Los Angeles in June, Trump has deployed them since last month in Washington, as part of his unprecedented law enforcement takeover of the nation’s capital.

He’s also suggested that Baltimore and New Orleans could get the same treatment, and on Friday even mentioned federal authorities possibly heading for Portland, Oregon, to “wipe ’em out,” meaning protesters. He could have been mistakenly describing video from demonstrations in that city years ago.

Details about Trump’s promised Chicago operation have been sparse, but there’s already widespread opposition. City and state leaders have said they plan to sue the Trump administration. Pritzker, a possible 2028 presidential candidate, is also fiercely opposed to it.

The president “is threatening to go to war with an American city,” Pritzker wrote on X over an image of Trump’s post. “This is not a joke. This is not normal.”

He added: “Donald Trump isn’t a strongman, he’s a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”

Trump has suggested that he has nearly limitless powers when it comes to deploying the National Guard. At times he’s even touched on questions about his being a dictator.

“Most people are saying, ‘If you call him a dictator, if he stops crime, he can be whatever he wants’ — I am not a dictator, by the way,” Trump said last month. He added, “Not that I don’t have — I would — the right to do anything I want to do.”

“I’m the president of the United States,” Trump said then. “If I think our country is in danger — and it is in danger in these cities — I can do it.”

Trump began putting the federal government to work for him within hours of taking office in January, and he’s been collecting and using power in novel ways ever since. It’s a high-velocity push to carry out his political agendas and grudges.

This past month, hundreds of federal agents and National Guard troops fanned out across Washington after Trump drew on a never-used law that allows him to take control of law enforcement in the nation’s capital. He’s threatened similar deployments in other cities run by Democrats, including Baltimore, Chicago, New York and New Orleans. He also fired a Federal Reserve governor, pointing to unproven claims of mortgage fraud.

That’s not weaponizing government, White House spokesperson Harrison Fields told The Associated Press; it’s wielding power.

“What the nation is witnessing today is the execution of the most consequential administration in American history,” Fields reportedly said, “one that is embracing common sense, putting America first, and fulfilling the mandate of the American people.”

https://www.themirror.com/news/politics/breaking-chicago-fights-back-against-1375650

Mirror US: Trump warned Pentagon name change makes US a ‘laughing stock’ to both allies and enemies

The President aims to lean into ‘warrior ethos’ after having campaigned on promises of ‘uniting forces to end the endless foreign wars’

The Trump administration is moving forward with plans to rename the Department of Defense to the Department of War after President Donald Trump first floated the idea on Monday, according to a Fox News report. A White House official confirmed the plan to The Mirror US on Thursday.

The decision marks a stark U-turn from the president’s campaign promises in 2024 to pursue peace, and from his frequent criticisms of former President Joe Biden for driving the U.S. “closer to World War III than anybody can imagine.”

“As President Trump said, our military should be focused on offense – not just defense – which is why he has prioritized warfighters at the Pentagon instead of DEI and woke ideology. Stay tuned!” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told Reuters this week, referring to programs aimed at increasing diversity, equity and inclusion. The Trump administration has not revealed the reasons it believes the department’s name constitutes “woke ideology.” It comes after a lip reader revealed the chilling 3-word promise that Donald Trump whispered into Vladimir Putin’s ear at their Alaska summit.

The move follows a string of similar name-changing decisions by the Trump administration as a measure of projecting the president’s stance on specific policy issues. In January, Trump issued an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”. He also referred to his controversial July domestic spending bill as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which in recent days his administration has attempted to rebrand as the “working families tax cut.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has also ordered the renaming of certain military vessels that previously bore the names of civil rights leaders, such as the USNS Harvey Milk. Last month, he renamed his conference room the “W.A.R. Room.” Hegseth has often proven to be concerned with the outward appearance of elements of his department, having even ordered a makeup studio to be installed inside the Pentagon and dictated which colors of nail polish are acceptable to be worn by Army soldiers.

Though restoring the name would require congressional action, the White House is reportedly exploring alternative methods to enact the change, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The decision to rename the Pentagon comes amid a broader push by Trump, Hegseth and their coalition to restore a “warrior ethos” to the federal government and America as a whole. It has included a purge of top military leaders whose views do not align with the president’s agenda.

“As Department of War, we won everything. We won everything,” Trump said last month, referring to the War Department established by Congress in 1789 to oversee the Army, Navy and Marine Corps. “I think we’re going to have to go back to that.”

The administration has also sought to ban transgender individuals from voluntarily joining the military and remove those who are currently serving on the basis of a claim that they are medically unfit. The claim has been described by civil rights groups as false and a representation of illegal discrimination, according to Reuters.

“This is so stupid and it’s going to make us a laughing stock in front of both our allies and our enemies,” one user wrote on X on Thursday.

Posturing the top defense department in the nation in a more aggressive and offensive direction is at odds with promises and statements made by Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign.

Trump lobbed frequent criticisms at Biden for the fact that, during his presidency, Russia invaded Ukraine and the conflict between Israel and Hamas was ignited. “(Biden) will drive us into World War III, and we’re closer to World War III than anybody can imagine,” Trump said, according to CNN.

Last August, while endorsing anti-war former Democratic Rep. Tusli Gabbard at a National Guard conference in Detroit, Trump claimed both Democrats and Independents would vote for him because of his plan to end wars. “We’re uniting forces to end the endless foreign wars,” he said of Gabbard’s endorsement. “When I’m back in the White House, we will expel the warmongers, the profiteers … and we will restore world peace.”

“I am confident that his first task will be to do the work to walk us back from the brink of war,” Gabbard said. “We cannot be prosperous unless we are at peace.”

His decision in June to launch a missile attack on Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities threw several of his most ardent, right-wing supporters into opposition, urging the president and his allies not to engage in foreign conflicts.

Trump, who claimed that he would solve the Russia-Ukraine war before taking office on Jan. 20,” had made little headway by early September in brokering peace between the two nations. He has also dubiously claimed that he has personally ended a handful of global wars during his second term.

“We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end, and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into,” Trump said during his inaugural address. “My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier. That’s what I want to be: a peacemaker and a unifier.”

It comes after Ukraine warned that Putin has a hit list of FIVE countries that he wants to invade next.

https://www.themirror.com/news/us-news/trump-warned-pentagon-name-change-1372151

CNN: Trump says Chicago ‘will find out why it’s called the Department of WAR’ ahead of planned crackdown

President Donald Trump posted a meme on social media Saturday saying that Chicago “will find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” as the city’s officials brace for an immigration crackdown.

“I love the smell of deportations in the morning … Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” the post reads. Trump signed an executive order Friday to rebrand the Pentagon as the “Department of War.”

The post includes what appears to be an artificially generated image of the president wearing a hat and sunglasses, with the Chicago skyline in the background, accompanied by text reading “Chipocalypse Now.”

Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Saturday called Trump’s post “not normal.”

“The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal,” Pritzker wrote on X. “Donald Trump isn’t a strongman, he’s a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”

It comes as Trump has ramped up his rhetoric against the country’s third most-populous city. CNN previously reported the Trump administration’s plans to conduct a major immigration enforcement operation in Chicago, and that officials there were bracing for it to begin as early as Friday.

In recent days, personnel from Immigration and Border Protection as well as Customs and Border Protection have begun trickling into the city, White House officials told CNN.

The Trump administration has also reserved the right to call in the National Guard if there is a reaction to the operation that warrants it, the officials said. The Chicago operation is being modeled off of a similar operation carried out in Los Angeles in June. A judge ruled this week that the June deployment broke federal law prohibiting the military from law enforcement activity on US soil in most cases; the Trump administration has appealed.

White House officials have made clear the Chicago immigration crackdown is distinct from the idea the president has floated to use federal law enforcement and National Guard troops to carry out a broader crime crackdown in the city, similar to the operation in Washington, DC.

When asked by a reporter Tuesday about sending National Guard troops into the city, Trump said, “We’re going,” adding, “I didn’t say when. We’re going in.”

Democratic officials who represent Chicago and Illinois also condemned Trump’s post Saturday.

“The President’s threats are beneath the honor of our nation, but the reality is that he wants to occupy our city and break our Constitution,” wrote Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson on social media. “We must defend our democracy from this authoritarianism by protecting each other and protecting Chicago from Donald Trump.”

Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth described Trump’s post on X as “Stolen valor at its worst,” writing, “Take off that Cavalry hat, you draft dodger. You didn’t earn the right to wear it.”

Rep. Mike Quigley, who represents part of Chicago, said Saturday afternoon on CNN that the post is an example of Trump “edging more and more toward authoritarianism.”

“This is a scary time. For those who haven’t paid attention, it’s time to watch what this president is doing,” Quigley said.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/06/politics/trump-chicago-war-meme-post

Time: Trump Provokes Anger After Threatening Chicago With ‘Department of War’

President Donald Trump threatened Chicago with his newly-renamed “Department of War” on Saturday, prompting anger from city and state officials who have been preparing for a looming deployment of National Guard troops to the city for weeks.

“‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning…’ Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of War,” Trump’s post on Truth Social said, accompanied by what appeared to be an AI-generated depiction of himself as Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore from the 1979 Vietnam War film Apocalypse Now. The words “Chicopolyse Now” were emblazoned on the image, a reference to Apocalypse Now, and the background showed a burning city and helicopters flying away.

The post prompted anger from state and city officials. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker called Trump a “wannabe dictator” and took the post as a threat to “go to war” with Chicago.

“The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city,” Pritzker wrote on X. “This is not a joke. This is not normal.”

“Donald Trump isn’t a strongman, he’s a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator,” he added. 

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson accused Trump of “authoritarianism.”

“The President’s threats are beneath the honor of our nation, but the reality is that he wants to occupy our city and break our Constitution,” he wrote on X.  

The post follows Trump’s Friday executive order that rebranded the Department of Defense as the Department of War, a move the president claimed sent “a message of strength.”

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said during the press conference Friday that the name indicates the department is “going to go on offense, not just on defense. Maximum lethality, not tepid legality. Violent effect, not politically correct.”

Trump’s threats against Chicago follow his decision to federalize D.C.’s police department and deploy National Guard troops on the streets on Aug. 11, citing violent crime—even though data showed that violent crime in the nation’s capital had already been declining significantly. Since then, the President has threatened similar deployments in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Baltimore, and Oakland.

Johnson and Pritzker have both been staunchly opposed to Trump’s threats of federal intervention. Last weekend, Johnson signed an executive order directing the city’s police force not to cooperate with federal agents in a potential crackdown on crime and immigration.

“We will protect our constitution. We will protect our city. And we will protect our people. We do not want to see tanks in our streets. We do not want to see families ripped apart,” Johnson said as he announced his executive order.

Pritzker has said that he will “absolutely” sue Trump and the federal government if he actually does deploy troops, adding to the multiple lawsuits already filed by Chicago against the President since his return to office in January.

https://time.com/7315149/trump-chicago-threat-war-pritzker

Slingshot News: ‘It’s The American Flag’: Trump’s Mental Decline Shows Up Again When He Mistakes The Flag For A Blanket During Oval Office Signing

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/it-s-the-american-flag-trump-s-mental-decline-shows-up-again-when-he-mistakes-the-flag-for-a-blanket-during-oval-office-signing/vi-AA1M0pf6

Wall Street Journal: White House Moves Forward on Plans for a Department of War

The Trump administration is drawing up plans to rebrand the Department of Defense as the Department of War, according to a White House official, following up on the president’s push to revive a name last used in 1947.

Restoring the discarded name of the government’s largest department could be done by an act of Congress, but the White House is considering other avenues to make the change, according to the official.

Trump has broached the idea repeatedly since taking office. “As Department of War, we won everything. We won everything,” Trump said Monday, referring to wars fought before the creation of the Department of Defense after World War II. “I think we’re going to have to go back to that.”

The Pentagon began developing legislative proposals to make the change in the early weeks of Trump’s second term, according to a former official. One idea was to ask Congress for authority to restore the former name during a national emergency, while also reviving the title of secretary of war for the department’s top civilian official, the former official said.

The old name “has a stronger sound,” Trump said Monday in an Oval Office meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung. He added the change would be made “over the next week or so.”

The structure of the military has evolved considerably since the Department of War was created in 1789, and so has the name for the bureaucracy overseeing it. Initially the Department of War oversaw the Army, while a separate Department of the Navy ran naval forces and the Marines.

After World War II in an effort to increase efficiency, President Harry S. Truman put the armed forces under one organization, initially called the National Military Establishment under a bill passed by Congress in 1947. The legislation merged the Navy and War Departments and the newly independent Air Force into a single organization led by a civilian secretary of defense.

Much of the opposition to the changes arose over ending the Navy’s status as an independent department. “We shall fight on The Hill, in the Senate chamber, and on the White House lawn,” read an inscription on a blackboard of a Navy captain who opposed the new system, according to a December 1948 St. Louis Post-Dispatch article. “We shall never surrender.”

Congress discarded the National Military Establishment in 1949 and renamed it the Department of Defense, giving the cabinet-level secretary more power to oversee the services, including their procurement procedures. That ignited concern that the enhanced powers would make the defense secretary a “military dictator,” according to a July 1949 article in the Los Angeles Daily News.

Trump has said his concern is that the title isn’t bellicose enough. In April, during an Oval Office event, he said that the Defense Secretary used to be known as the War Secretary. “They changed it when we became a little bit politically correct,” he said.

He raised the idea of reviving the title at a NATO summit in The Hague in June: “It used to be called Secretary of War,” Trump said at a gathering of foreign leaders. “Maybe we’ll have to start thinking about changing it.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth weighed in Tuesday during a cabinet meeting, saying Defense Department “just doesn’t sound right.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/white-house-moves-forward-on-plans-for-a-department-of-war/ar-AA1Lyg8m