Trump’s Pentagon demands tax dollars for 'pointless bureaucratic chest-thumping'

The Trump administration is demanding that Congress step up to codify one of his many rebranding efforts, essentially asking for tax dollars to fund his defense chief's "pointless bureaucratic chest-thumping," according to a new analysis from MS NOW.

Early on in his second term, Trump issued an executive order claiming to rename the Department of Defense to the much more antagonistic, "Department of War," foreshadowing the president's hard shift to a more belligerent foreign policy. A Cabinet-level agency, however, cannot be given a new name unless it is approved via an act of Congress, but despite that inconvenient fact, the administration has barrelled on ahead, using what MS NOW called "a secondary nickname" as if it were the real deal ever since.

Now, the White House has urged Congress to step up and codify the "Department of War" into law. It is a move that would require extensive alterations to existing laws and millions of dollars in taxpayer money.

"The Pentagon has asked Congress to codify its ‘Department of War’ renaming, saying it will cost nearly $52 million to complete and will not have a ‘significant impact’ on President Trump’s fiscal 2027 defense budget request," The Hill explained in a recent report. "The request would make around 7,600 changes to the federal law, including officially changing the Department of Defense to the Department of War, Secretary of Defense to Secretary of War, among other updates."

On Wednesday, Steve Benen, a longtime MS NOW contributor and producer for host Rachel Maddow, reacted to this questionable request, calling out the rebrand as "pointless bureaucratic chest-thumping" and decrying the move as a "misguided" waste of money at a time when economic issues are weighing heavily on voters.

"In case this isn’t obvious, the proposed name change remains an entirely unnecessary priority, which sends all of the wrong messages to the world about the United States and its intentions," Benen wrote. "Career military leaders didn’t ask for this, and for the last several months, the proposed change did little more than annoy Pentagon insiders. What’s more, it’s tempting to think Hegseth and other DOD leaders would put aside trivial pursuits like this during an ongoing war in Iran, which, two months in, has no end in sight."

The price tag for the proposed codification would be even worse than the initial reports suggested. As Benen explained, the Pentagon's unofficial process of adopting the war-hungry nickname has already cost around $50 million. If Congress does approve the name change, the entire ordeal will end up costing $125 million, per a recent estimate from the Congressional Budget Office.

"Pointless bureaucratic chest-thumping is misguided," Benen concluded. "Asking American taxpayers to pick up the tab for expensive bureaucratic chest-thumping is worse."

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