Donald Trump’s speech on Sunday took an unexpected turn when he went on a tangent about the names of US military installations.
“We won world wars out of forts,” he said. “Fort Benning, Fort This, Fort That, many forts. They changed the name, we won wars out of these forts, they changed the name, they changed the name of the forts, a lot of people aren’t too happy about that.”
Trump then essentially repeated the aside.
“They changed the name of a lot of our forts, we won two world wars out of a lot of these forts and they changed the name,” he said. “It’s unbelievable.”
Nine US military installations named for Confederate generals have been renamed to honour people who haven’t fought against the United States.
The Fort Benning referenced by Trump was named for Henry L Benning, who NPR noted was not just a Confederate general but a “virulent white supremacist”.
It was renamed Fort Moore last year in honor of Lt Gen. Hal Moore and his wife, Julia Compton Moore, who Military.com called “one of the Army’s most influential couples”.
Trump’s critics on X noted the strange digression: