WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump has vowed to veto this year's proposed $741 billion annual defense bill if an amendment is included that would require the Pentagon to change the names of bases named for Confederate military leaders, going against sentiment in his own party and imperiling a 3% pay raise for the troops.
Late Tuesday, the president echoed his previous pledge to "not even consider the renaming" of military bases as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, pushing back against a provision that would change the names of 10 bases named after Confederate generals as well as remove Confederate likenesses, symbols and paraphernalia from defense facilities nationwide within three years.
He voiced his frustration over the provision in a late-night tweet slamming Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the amendment's sponsor whom the president regularly calls "Pocahontas," a reference to her claims of American Indian heritage.
"I will Veto the Defense Authorization Bill if the Elizabeth 'Pocahontas' Warren (of all people!) Amendment, which will lead to the renaming (plus other bad things!) of Fort Bragg, Fort Robert E. Lee, and many other Military Bases from which we won Two World Wars, is in the Bill!" Trump said.
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The measure, which was approved last month in a voice vote by the Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee, has become a flash point at a time when nationwide protests over racial injustice and police brutality continue in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Memorial Day.
Democrats and critics have been quick to challenge the president on the issue, and it was no different on Tuesday. Trump's previous suggestion that he would veto the defense bill over the renaming of the military bases drew criticism earlier on Tuesday from Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. In a news conference, Schumer said the provision sponsored by Warren would remain in this year's National Defense Authorization Act, no matter what the president proclaimed.
"I dare President Trump to veto the bill over Confederate-base naming," Schumer said to reporters. "It's in the bill. It has bipartisan support. It will stay in the bill." He added, "I think the bottom line is what's in the bill will stay in the bill."
Without Trump vetoing the entire defense bill, stripping the amendment from this year's National Defense Authorization Act remains highly unlikely. Opponents of the base-renaming amendment are not expected to be anywhere close to the 60 votes needed to remove it from the bill.
"There are definitely not 60 votes to remove that provision, which is already in the bill, and I don't think there are 50," Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, tweeted Wednesday.
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has suggested that a final vote on the chamber's bill would take place before the Fourth of July holiday. As The Washington Post reported, Republican support for the provision suggests it will survive any potential challenges on the Senate floor this week.
There has been vocal opposition to the provision in the chamber, such as from Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who has proposed an amendment to strip the renaming requirement. Inhofe has previously said that he hoped to change the language in Warren's amendment so that the requirement to rename the bases would instead be a recommendation.
Opponents of Warren's provision, including Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark. and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., face slim odds of gaining support during floor debate. The chamber is debating the bill now but won't finish it until later this month.
"Instead of mandating the renaming of military bases, including Fort Bragg, we need a thoughtful and constructive process that includes the input of our military communities," Tillis said.
Senior Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Majority Whip John Thune of South Dakota, have distanced themselves from the president's stance in recent weeks, the Post reported.
"I'm not wedded to the idea that those names of those military installations are eternal," Thune said last month. "I think that you reevaluate, given the timing and circumstances and where we are in the country, who we want to revere with, you know, by naming military installations or other national monuments. And so I think you have to periodically take a look at that. And in this case, it's perhaps time to do it."
STATUES GOING
The debate in the Senate this week shifts attention toward the push to remove the names of the Confederate officials from military bases after a month that has seen statues of Confederate leaders and slave owners taken down across the country.
Work crews in Richmond, Va., on Wednesday removed a statue of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson from the city's Monument Avenue, hours after the Mayor Levar Stoney ordered the removal of all Confederate statues from city land.
Flatbed trucks and other equipment were spotted at several other Richmond monuments as well. The city has roughly a dozen Confederate statues on municipal land, including one of Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart. Stoney said it will take several days to remove them.
In Washington, the House will vote this month on a bill to remove from the Capitol the bust of Roger Taney, the U.S. Supreme Court justice who wrote the Dred Scott decision, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Wednesday.
The bill, introduced in March by Hoyer and Rep. David Trone, both D-Md., would replace the bust of Taney with a bust of Thurgood Marshall, the first Black member of the Supreme Court. The bust of Taney sits outside the old Supreme Court chamber on the first floor of the Capitol.
"A bust of Chief Justice Taney should not be displayed in a place of honor in our nation's Capitol," Hoyer said in a statement when he and Trone introduced the legislation. "In Maryland we made the decision to remove a statue of Taney from the State House grounds, reflecting his shameful contribution to the evil system of slavery and its defense, and we ought to do the same here."
Also on Wednesday, acting U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf announced the agency has established a task force to protect historic landmarks against vandalism and destruction from "violent anarchists and rioters" around the nation.
The establishment of the task force comes at the direction of Trump, who issued an executive order Friday directing federal authorities to protect monuments after protesters tried to pull down a statue of Andrew Jackson near the White House.
Wolf said Homeland Security personnel would be deployed over the Fourth of July weekend to protect landmarks in the event of any civil unrest.
"We want to make sure that our facilities are protected, the statues and monuments on those facilities are protected and of course the people that work in those buildings are protected as well," he said in an interview on "Fox & Friends."
Information for this article was contributed by Timothy Bella, Felicia Sonmez, Paul Kane and DeNeen L. Brown of The Washington Post; and by Denise Lavoie, Alan Suderman, Andrew Taylor and staff members of The Associated Press.