Trump to move Space Command HQ from Colorado to Alabama

(NewsNation) — President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. Space Command headquarters is moving from Colorado to Alabama, a source familiar with the move confirmed to NewsNation.

It will be his first public appearance in nearly a week.

Trump touted his work creating Space Force and said the move will create 30,000 jobs in Alabama and result in billions in investment.

The move will shift the command’s operations from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama.

When discussing his reasoning, Trump cited Colorado’s use of mail-in voting. Trump has vowed to eliminate mail-in voting, though the power to determine how elections are conducted is given to the states in the Constitution.

When asked if he was worried about people’s willingness to move from Colorado to Alabama, Trump dismissed the question and said they would just hire somebody else.

Huntsville is nicknamed the “Rocket City” and has long been home to the Army’s Redstone Arsenal and the Army Space and Missile Defense Command, along with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

Alabama was Trump’s top choice for headquarters location in 2021, the Associated Press reported at the time. In 2023, the Biden administration chose Colorado Springs as the command’s permanent site.

During the question-and-answer session, Trump said the U.S. military shot a boat that originated from Venezuela carrying “a lot of drugs” and he had been briefed on the incident by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Trump also said he was going to send National Guard troops into Chicago, though he declined to give a timeline on when that might take place. This morning, a federal judge in California ruled that a similar deployment in Los Angeles violated the law.

He railed against crime in Chicago, Baltimore and California, suggesting he could once again send troops to the Golden State. Trump also indicated that he wants the governors of those areas to call him and ask for help, rejecting comments from local leaders who say their cities need housing and social services, not a military presence.

The president declared that he has made Washington, D.C., a “safe zone” by deploying armed members of the National Guard and federal agents.

Trump said a viral video appearing to show someone throwing a bag out of the window in the White House must be AI-generated, before joking that if something really bad happens, just blame AI.

The White House press office has confirmed the video was real and said it was a contractor doing work in the building while Trump was away.

The president said his administration would be heading to the Supreme Court as early as tomorrow, to seek a ruling on tariffs. An appellate court ruled that most of the president’s tariffs were unlawfully imposed.

“If you take away tariffs, we could end up being a third-world country,” Trump said.

While targeted tariffs have been used in certain situations, the U.S. has not used widespread, blanket tariffs since before the Great Depression.

Trump ended the press conference abruptly after lashing out at a reporter who asked about the California decision, berating them for not noting that 300 troops were allowed to remain in LA. Trump did not mention that the judge put significant restrictions on the activity of those troops.