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Donald Trump said he will revert the name of a North Carolina military base back to its prior name honoring a Confederate general, and suggested his pledge to do so will lead to “winning absolutely” in the election.
Speaking at a town hall in neighboring Fayetteville, Trump said that if elected, he would change Fort Liberty’s name back to Fort Bragg, after Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg, who enslaved people and is widely regarded as one of the worst and most loathed generals of the Civil War.
“I think I just learned the secret to winning absolutely and by massive margins. I’m going to promise to you, as I said at the beginning, that we’re going to change the name back to Fort Bragg,” Trump told the crowd, before referencing a person who had been booed after identifying as an “active-duty soldier at Fort Liberty.”
“Because I think when that word gets out — I just see this great-looking soldier just accidentally said ‘Fort Liberty,’ and he got almost booed the hell out of the place,” Trump added.
The base was renamed alongside eight other installations that honored Confederate soldiers after a recommendation from a congressional commission in 2022. In one of his final acts as president, Trump vetoed a military spending bill that included a provision to rename those nine military bases. Congress later overrode his veto.
Trump has a history of defending monuments and institutions that honor Confederate figures. He has publicly opposed the removal of Confederate statues and repeatedly praised Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, endearing himself to white supremacists, whom he has refused to condemn.
But the former president has also long denigrated military officials and military families. Over the summer, he accused the military’s highest ranks of being “woke” and threatened to fire them if elected. At the end of his town hall on Friday, he agreed with a former Air Force pilot’s suggestion to create a panel to keep out “woke generals.”