Day 1,282: Trump claims Congress won’t change names of Confederate-named military bases a day after Congress passed bill to do just that

Donald Trump took to Twitter Friday morning to announce that he spoke with Senate Armed Services Chair Jim Inhofe who told him that the Confederate-named military bases wouldn’t have their names changed.

But Inhofe doesn’t have that power.

In fact, both chambers of Congress overwhelmingly passed a bill — the House on Tuesday and the Senate on Thursday — that would, among other things, strip traitors’ names from military bases.

The Senate overwhelmingly passed its $741 billion defense policy legislation on Thursday, with the Republican-led body defying a threat from President Donald Trump to veto legislation that would force the removal of Confederate names from Army bases.

Senators approved the National Defense Authorization Act in a 86–14 blowout. Both the House and Senate have passed bills this week with majorities large enough to overcome a veto from Trump.

Trump is between a rock and a hard place of his own doing.

On one hand, there’s wide national and political support to remove the names of turncoats from many of the bases that train the next generation of America’s armed forces. That has led to Congress having a veto-proof majority on a bill that would authorize more planes and ships to be built while also giving a pay raise to troops.

On the other hand, Trump has announced over and over again that he would never approve changing the name of bases that helped train troops for two “beautiful world wars.”

If he vetoes the bill, he’s going to be eviscerated for it and the veto will very likely be overridden by Congress anyway. If he signs the bill, he will have retreated on an oft-made public promise, something he almost never does.

1,282 days in, 180 to go

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