President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Friday officially changing the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War.
The department, often referred to as the Pentagon after its distinct headquarters in Virginia, had its name changed to the Department of Defense following the end of the Second World War.
Both the president and his Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, have advocated for the name change. The rebranding is part of the Trump administration’s “warrior ethos” campaign, which has included renaming bases and ships and banning books.
In other news, the latest jobs numbers show employment growth is worse than expected. New data out this morning is the latest since Trump dramatically fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Erika McEntarfer last month.
The U.S added just 22,000 jobs in August, worse than economists predicted, as the job market continues to cool amid the knock-on effects from Trump’s trade war with tariffs. Unemployment increased to 4.3 percent, the highest since 2021, according to Bloomberg.
