Kayleigh McEnany Defends Trump Opposition to Renaming Bases Named for Confederate Leaders: ‘Where Do You Draw the Line?’

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany began Wednesday’s press briefing sharing the announcement from President Donald Trump that his administration will not support renaming military bases named for Confederate leaders.

Earlier this week, reports indicated that the Secretary of the Army was open to having discussions about renaming bases, but just this afternoon the president declared on Twitter he’a absolutely opposed to it.

At one point during the briefing, McEnany was asked about the decisions from the Marine Corps and the Navy to remove public displays of the Confederate flag, and whether the president agrees.

She didn’t answer that one, instead going back to saying he’s against the renaming of military bases and trying to argue that renaming them would be an insult to soldiers who lost their lives:

“These great American fortresses where literally some of these men and women who lost their lives, as they went out to Europe and Afghanistan and Iraq and all across this world to win world wars on behalf of freedom, a lot of times the very last place they saw was one of these forts. And to suggest there forts are somehow inherently racist and their names need to be changed is a complete disrespect to the men and women who the last bit of American land they saw before they went overseas and lost their lives were these forts.”

Later on in the briefing, another reporter pressed McEnany and she again invoked the sacrifices of men and women who served to justify the decision not to rename the bases named for Confederate leaders.

Fox News’ John Roberts followed up by pointing out that former General David Petraeus recently wrote that bases like Fort Bragg should be renamed. As Petraeus wrote:

For an organization designed to win wars to train for them at installations named for those who led a losing force is sufficiently peculiar, but when we consider the cause for which these officers fought, we begin to penetrate the confusion of Civil War memory. These bases are, after all, federal installations, home to soldiers who swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. The irony of training at bases named for those who took up arms against the United States, and for the right to enslave others, is inescapable to anyone paying attention. Now, belatedly, is the moment for us to pay such attention.

McEnany continued to insist “Fort Bragg is known for the heroes within it” and again claimed it’s an insult to the sacrifice soldiers made to rename it.

She also went on a tangent asking “where do you draw the line?”, starting with HBO Max removing Gone With the Wind and ending with references to news reports about Joe Biden’s work with segregationists in the Senate decades ago. She asked, “Should we then rename the Biden Welcome Center?”

And with that, she ended the briefing.

You can watch above, via Fox News.