President Donald Trump plans to sign an executive order on Friday resurrecting the Department of Defense’s prior moniker, the Department of War.

The order will apply “Department of War” as a secondary title to the Pentagon under the Department of Defense. It will also add the title “secretary of War” to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to a White House fact sheet reviewed by Fox News.

Hegseth is also expected to draft legislation and potential executive orders that would officially change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War.

Hegseth appeared to welcome the news on Thursday evening, posting on X after news of Trump’s impending order broke: “DEPARTMENT OF WAR.”

DEPARTMENT OF WAR https://t.co/uyAZGiklRi

— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) September 4, 2025

Hegseth said Wednesday that the name change would reflect a broader cultural shift that the Trump administration has brought to the U.S. military.

“We’re reestablished at the department the warrior ethos. We want warriors, folks that understand how to exact lethality on the enemy. We don’t want endless contingencies and just playing defense. We think words and names and titles matter. So we’re working with the White House and the president on it. Stand by,” Hegseth said in an interview on Fox News.

The president has floated the name change before. Last month, Trump strongly suggested that he planned to move ahead with the name change during a press conference in the Oval Office.

“[Defense Secretary] Pete Hegseth has been incredible with the, as I call it, the Department of War. You know, we call it the Department of Defense, but between us, I think we’re going to change the name,” the president said. “You want to know the truth, I think we’re going to have some information on that maybe soon.”

The Department of Defense was previously called the Department of War, first established by President George Washington in 1789. The department carried the name “War” until President Harry Truman reorganized the federal government in 1947. The Department of Defense was so named two years later.

“It used to be called the Department of War, and it had a stronger sound and, as you know, we won World War I, we won World War II, we won everything. Now, we have a Department of Defense with defenders,” Trump said on August 25.

“I don’t want to be defense only. We want defense, but we want offense, too, if that’s okay,” he continued, adding, “as Department of War, we won everything. We won everything. And I think we’re gonna have to go back to that.”

GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah said last month that he would introduce legislation to codify changing the name officially to the Department of War.

A federal appeals court issued a ruling on Thursday allowing an illegal alien detention center in Florida dubbed Alligator Alcatraz to remain “open for business” while a lawsuit against the state and the Trump administration makes its way through court.

An Obama-appointed federal district court judge issued a temporary restraining order last month ordering Florida and the Trump administration to stop placing illegal aliens in the facility. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked that judge’s order in a 2-1 decision on Thursday.

The judges ruled that a lawsuit brought by environmental groups and an American Indian tribe “failed to state a viable claim” that Florida and the Department of Homeland Security violated federal environmental laws.

“Given that the federal government has an undisputed and wide-reaching interest in combatting illegal immigration, and that illegal immigration is a matter of national security and public safety, we think the injunction issued below goes against the public interest,” the majority wrote in the court’s decision.

Both the Department of Homeland Security and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis celebrated the ruling.

“Today’s order is a win for the American people, the rule of law and common sense,” the Department of Homeland Security posted on X. “This lawsuit was never about the environmental impacts of turning a developed airport into a detention facility. It has and will always be about open-borders activists and judges trying to keep law enforcement from removing dangerous criminal aliens from our communities, full stop.”

HUGE VICTORY FOR ALLIGATOR ALCATRAZ. Today’s order is a win for the American people, the rule of law and common sense. This lawsuit was never about the environmental impacts of turning a developed airport into a detention facility. It has and will always be about open-borders…

— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) September 4, 2025

“The mission continues on immigration enforcement. The media was giddy that somehow Alligator Alcatraz was ‘shutting down.’ And we told them that wasn’t true,” DeSantis said in a video message. “There have been illegal aliens continuing to be there and being removed and returned to their home country. But they ran with the narrative because some leftist judge ruled, implausibly, that somehow Florida wasn’t allowed to use our own property to help the federal government in this important mission.”

“So Alligator Alcatraz is, in fact, like we’ve always said, open for business. The mission continues and we’re going to continue leading the way when it comes to immigration enforcement,” DeSantis added.

The Trump administration has partnered with states across the country to open up similar detention centers with names like the Cornhusker Clink in Nebraska and the Speedway Slammer in Indiana.