Pentagon Demands Congress Burn Millions to Make Name Change Official

The Trump administration’s various projects to reshape the government—even the symbolic ones—are costing U.S. taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

In its latest legislative proposal, the Department of Defense has formally asked Congress to codify its rebrand as the “Department of War,” assuring it that the name change would have “no significant impact” on future spending.

Yet the military agency also acknowledged that it has already spent some $50 million in implementing the new title. The vast majority of that price tag, roughly $44.6 million, was tied to the agency’s enterprise systems, infrastructure, and administrative support, reported Inside Defense Tuesday.

That money was potentially spent in vain. While Donald Trump declared the identity switch via an executive order in September, the department’s name remains unchanged by law. Ultimately, Congress alone is responsible for the redesignation.

However, the $50 million already spent could turn out to be just a fraction of the overall cost to cast a more aggressive identity on America’s military agency. In January, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that renaming the DOD could cost as much as $125 million or more if the title was used across the entire agency.

“Costs would be at least a few million dollars if DoD phased in a minimal implementation, but they could be as large as $125 million if the name change was implemented broadly and rapidly throughout the department,” the CBO wrote at the time. “A statutory renaming could cost hundreds of millions of dollars depending on how Congress and DoD chose to implement the change.”

Despite Trump’s repeat campaign pledges to slash government spending, practically all of the MAGA leader’s sweeping government reforms have come with hidden fees. This week, Republicans began pushing their congressional colleagues to sign a $400 million check to construct Trump’s White House ballroom.

Led by South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, the cohort has claimed that the space needs to be built expeditiously as a matter of national security. Citing the assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday, Republicans have argued that the president is not safe without the proposed 90,000-square-foot dance hall and the attached underground military complex.

None of them have yet explained how the Secret Service—which also manned security at the Saturday night dinner—would have hypothetically fared differently at the White House location.

The ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis—and then called her a “fucking bitch” moments before she died in her car—has been transferred to a different state to continue his work with the agency, as the FBI continues to supress an investigation into him.

PunchUp, The Daily Beast’s new Substack, reported that Jonathan Ross, who was only placed on three days of administrative leave for shooting Good in the arm, head, and chest, is back in both an administrative and investigative capacity, facing virtually no consequences for killing an innocent woman in broad daylight.

Department of Homeland Security officials told the outlet that ICE’s internal affairs can’t conduct its own investigation until the FBI probe ends—meaning Ross could avoid accountability for a long time to come.

The FBI’s investigation into Ross has been delayed and marked by a series of controversial moves. Six senior Justice Department officials quit in January over the department’s handling of the case, as did an FBI supervisor in the Minneapolis field office who was pushed to discontinue her civil rights probe into Ross. And while the DOJ claims that the investigation is ongoing, the only thing that’s come out of it is Ross returning to work.

Donald Trump’s picture could soon be on every new U.S. passport.

The State Department is finalizing a plan to put the president’s face in the travel document, The Bulwark reports, citing two sources with knowledge of the passport redesign, one of whom provided pictures. The new passports will include Trump’s second inaugural portrait superimposed over the Declaration of Independence, along with his signature in gold.

According to The Bulwark, there will be a “limited run” of 25,000 of these Trump passports, which are still waiting to be approved. While the current U.S. passport includes an image of Mount Rushmore, which has the heads of four presidents, this would be the first stand-alone image of a U.S. president, living or dead, in a passport. No foreign passports have included pictures of heads of state, and U.S. passports have previously carried the signature of the secretary of state, but not the president.

Trump has made a habit of putting his name on things in his second term as president, from the U.S. Institute of Peace to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He’s put banners with his face on federal buildings and created a website for prescriptions called TrumpRx.gov.

This new passport is supposedly part of the 250th anniversary of American independence, and comes as the Treasury Department hopes to produce two coins with Trump’s face on them: a $1 coin with Trump’s face on it for general circulation and a commemorative coin that would be “as large as possible.” The president seems intent on having Americans feel shame every time they open their wallet or travel overseas.

In the latest escalation of President Donald Trump’s beef with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, the Federal Communications Commission has begun an early review of Disney’s broadcast licenses, The New York Times reported Tuesday.  

Trump’s crusade against Kimmel reignited after the television host joked last week that Melania would “glow like an expectant widow” at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Days later, a suspected gunman attempted to attack the event, launching the latest round of conservative pearl-clutching and suggestions that the gunman had gotten the idea to assassinate the president from late-night TV. 

The shooter’s supposed manifesto specifically referred to Trump’s lack of respect for Christianity, his decision to cut off funding for Ukraine, and the country being led by “a pedophile, rapist, and traitor” as primary grievances for his actions. Not Kimmel’s joke. 

But in the days after the shooting, Melania Trump, the president, and at least two members of White House staff have attacked Kimmel.

Earlier this month, FCC Chair Brandon Carr publicly suggested that Disney’s broadcast license could be in jeopardy, after launching an investigation into Disney over its alleged efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion. “If the evidence does in fact play out and shows that they were engaged in race- and gender-based discrimination, that’s a very serious issue at the FCC, that could fundamentally go to their character qualifications to even hold a license,” Carr told Fox News.

Disney and ABC have previously bucked the president’s wishes by reinstalling Kimmel after he was temporarily suspended for criticizing the conservative base’s response to Charlie Kirk’s death. Carr threatened the company’s licenses then, too. Carr warned on a far-right podcast that if Disney and ABC don’t “take action on Kimmel,” they may see suspension of broadcast licenses.

This story has been updated.