President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Aug. 25, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) US President Donald Trump on Tuesday revealed his intention to rename the Department of Defense as the “Department of War”, arguing that the old name “sounds stronger” and is tied to America’s historic military victories.
“The Department of Defense… It didn’t sound good — defence. Why are we on defence? So it used to be called the Department of War, and it had a stronger sound,” Trump told reporters at the Oval office. “And as you know, we won World War I. We won World War II. We won everything. Now we have a Department of Defense. We’re defenders.”
He then addressed the gathering of administration officials standing behind him, saying that if they largely agreed to it, changing the name would be okay.
“That’s coming. You let me know if you want to do it. I think Department of War, it just sounded better,” he said. “We want defence, but we want offense too, if that’s OK. So you’ll make a decision. But you know, as Department of War, we won everything.”
Trump says he wants to rename the Department of Defense back to the Department of War. pic.twitter.com/a7pvBDMQHs
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Brushing aside concerns about congressional approval, Trump said: “We’re just going to do it… I’m sure Congress will go along if we need that. I don’t think we even need that.”
Q: “On the Department of War, how do you plan to do that? It requires an act of Congress to rename the Defense Department…”
President Trump: “We’re just going to do it. I’m sure Congress will go along if we need that…Defense is too defensive. We want to be defensive, but we… pic.twitter.com/tfj3jhGVhY
— CSPAN (@cspan) August 25, 2025
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This is not the first time, President Trump has floated the idea. At the NATO summit in June, Trump suggested reviving the Pentagon’s original name, even referring to Pete Hegseth as his “Secretary of War”.
“If you look at the old building next to the White House, you can see where it used to be the Secretary of War,” Trump said on June 26. “Then we became politically correct, and they called it Secretary of Defence. Maybe we’ll have to start thinking about changing it.”
The Department of War was one of the first three federal agencies created by the US Congress in 1789, alongside the Department of Foreign Affairs (now the State Department) and the Department of the Treasury.
In 1798, Congress established the Department of the Navy. After World War II, the Truman administration merged the Army and Navy departments, along with the newly created Air Force, into the National Military Establishment under the National Security Act of 1947. Two years later, in 1949, the agency was renamed the Department of Defense to reflect its broader civilian-led mandate.
