Trump promises to not rename military bases honouring Confederate leaders
Jul 25, 2020
Washington [United States], July 25 : President Donald Trump made a vow yesterday to repeal legislation renaming military bases that honour Confederate leaders. He said this after Congress overwhelmingly voted to pass the move of renaming the military bases, this week.
Trump had earlier threatened to use his presidential veto power to kill the $740 billion defense bill. However, he was overruled by lawmakers when the Senate and the House, both approved the measure with veto-proof votes of 86-14 and 295-125, respectively, New York Post reported.
Trump has always been an opponent of the idea from the beginning. His stance has always been that the Confederate military leaders are part of the 'Great American Heritage'.
In a tweet yesterday Trump wrote "I spoke to highly respected (Chairman) Senator @JimInhofe, who has informed me that he WILL NOT be changing the names of our great Military Bases and Forts, places from which we won two World Wars (and more!)," the president wrote. "Like me, Jim is not a believer in 'Cancel Culture'," he added.
It is not clear how successful Trump will be, in being able to stall the Congress decision. The US president gets 10 days to sign a bill passed by the Congress (the US parliament). He can veto a bill by returning the legislation to whichever house it originated in. This veto can only be overruled only by a 2/3rd vote each, in both the houses of the Congress. If this occurs, a bill will become a law over the President's objections.
While the House and the Senate must now get together to clear any differences in their two bills, the overwhelming bipartisan votes suggest there is an appetite among lawmakers to scrap the names of Confederate soldiers from military bases.
The law will require the Pentagon to rename within the next three years all military assets named after people who fought for the Confederacy against the Union 155 years ago, during the American Civil War (1861-65).
It comes at a time when the nation is engaged in an emotional conversation about race problems following the death of George Floyd, who died when a white police officer in Minneapolis, kneeled on his throat for 9 minutes. This has since sparked once-in-a-generation civil rights demonstrations in the country.
