Former President Trump on Friday vowed to revert North Carolina’s Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg if he’s elected this fall, a little over a year after the military installation was redesignated to remove the name of a Confederate general.
“The first question that I asked: Should we change the name from Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg?” Trump said, prompting raucous applause from the crowd gathered for his town hall in Fayetteville, near the base. “So here’s what we do, we get elected. I’m doing it.”
The Army base, the largest in the country, was originally named after Gen. Braxton Bragg, a slave owner and Confederate general. During his administration, Trump mocked efforts to rename the base as part of a push to ditch the names of Confederate soldiers. It was officially dubbed “Fort Liberty” last year.
“I’m going to promise to you, as I said at the beginning, that we’re going to change the name back to Fort Bragg,” Trump underscored toward the end of the roughly hour-long event.
The former president fielded questions from pre-selected audience members, including current and former members of the military, with Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R) moderating. The night focused on the military and foreign policy, and Trump took the opportunity to re-up his ideas for an Iron Dome in the U.S. and to slam Biden for saying Israel shouldn’t target Iranian nuclear sites.
“We have to be absolutely prepared. But when they asked him that question, the answer should have been, ‘hit the nuclear first and worry about the rest later,’” Trump said.