President Donald Trump is not necessarily offended by the Confederate flag because it "represents the South," and he said he "might" veto a congressional bill to change the name of military bases in the South.
"I don't care what the military says; I'm supposed to make the decision," Trump told "Fox News Sunday" about plans to changing the names of bases that have stood for "decades." "Fort Bragg is a big deal. We won two world wars — nobody even knows General Bragg. We won two world wars."
Trump mocked host Chris Wallace, asking him what he was going to rename Fort Bragg.
"Are you going to name it after the Rev. Al Sharpton?" Trump asked. "What are you going to name it, Chris? Tell me what you're going to name it."
Trump pointed to the two world wars, "and we won them out of Fort Bragg."
"Now, we're going to throw those names away, and no, I'm against that," Trump told Wallace, saying he "might" veto the National Defense Authorization Act passed by a bipartisan vote in Congress, which would give the soldiers another pay raise under the Trump administration.
Trump also rejected "cancel culture" in forcing the removal of the Confederate flag.
"When people proudly hang their Confederate flags, they're not talking about racism," Trump told Wallace. "They love their flag, it represents the South. They like the South. People right now like the South. I say it's freedom of many things, but it's freedom of speech.
"I'm not offended either by Black Lives Matter, that's freedom of speech. You know the whole thing with cancel culture — we can't cancel our whole history. We can't forget that the North and the South fought. We have to remember that, otherwise we'll end up fighting again.
"You can't just cancel all that."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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