On Tuesday, MAGA Republican President Donald Trump announced he's moving the headquarters for the United States' 11th combatant command, Space Command (SpaceCom), from Colorado Springs, Colorado, to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.
Trump created joint forces SpaceCom in 2019, setting the headquarters at Colorado Springs, as the first step to establishing a sixth branch of the military—Space Force. Joint forces commands are staffed by personnel from two or more branches of the military.
As of 2025, congressional records showed about 1,700 people from the United States Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force working at Space Command.
On Tuesday, Trump stated:
"The US Space Command headquarters will move to the beautiful locale of a place called Huntsville, Alabama, forever to be known from this point forward as Rocket City."
The name Rocket City wasn't created by Trump, despite his claim it would be used "from this point forward." Huntsville was integral to the post WWII space race as the home base of German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and his team.
You can watch Trump's announcement here:
Trump continued:
"We're going to be having a Golden Dome, the likes of which nobody has ever seen before."
It's unclear if Trump knows "Golden Dome" is just the name chosen by defense contractors, lobbyists, and congressional sponsors to sell the Trump administration their missile defense project, and not an actual golden anything.
As the name of an as yet nonexistent project, nobody has ever seen the likes of Trump's Golden Dome before.
Trump added:
"We initially selected Huntsville for the SpaceCom headquarters. Yet those plans were wrongfully obstructed by the Biden administration."
In reality, Colorado Springs—as the headquarters of the binational North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) Command since 1957—already had the infrastructure in place making it initially a much more efficient and cost-effective option to stand up Trump's new command.
Lower costs overall in economically disadvantaged Alabama are expected to recoup the loses created by the move in about 15 years according to a report published by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in May 2025. GAO rejected the Air Force's 2021 decision to set up SpaceCom in Alabama over missing and inadequate information in their cost analysis.
Democratic President Joe Biden made the decision to keep SpaceCom HQ where Trump put it in 2019, Colorado Springs. The location achieved Full Operational Capability at Peterson Space Force Base in December 2023 while waiting for the Air Force to meet GAO assessment requirements.
In his Tuesday press briefing, Trump eventually revealed the real reason for making the move to Redstone Arsenal in red state Alabama, leaving blue state Colorado.
Trump stated:
"The problem I have with Colorado, one of the big problems, they do mail-in voting. They went to all mail-in voting, so they have automatically crooked elections."
"We can’t have that when a state is for mail-in voting, that means they want dishonest elections, because that’s what that means. So that played a big factor also."
Trump's comment, as usual, ignores the fact the red states of Nevada and Utah primarily use mail-in voting. And despite his complaints, there is no evidence linking mail-in voting to increased voter fraud.
There is however evidence of it increasing voter participation, especially among those to whom access to in-person voting is limited: the working class, elderly, and disabled. While Trump claims to be against voter fraud, his campaign against mail-in voting supports the voter suppression agenda mapped out in Project 2025.
Trump—flanked by the many MAGA members of Alabama's congressional delegation—shared:
"We love Alabama. I only won it by about 47 points. I don’t think that influenced my decision, though... they fought harder for it than anybody else."
As photos and video clips of Trump glad-handing MAGA Republicans and Senator Tommy Tuberville sucking up to Trump hit social media...
...people are crying foul over another act of petty, costly retaliation because Trump isn't getting his way.
@braesikalla/X
@BobMcIntyr53/X
In an official statement, Colorado Democratic Governor Jared Polis wrote:
"This is a deeply disappointing decision for our state and nation. This is the wrong decision, diminishing military readiness and national security and eroding the trust Americans have in our country and its leaders to do the right thing."
"Uprooting Space Command will weaken national security and readiness, waste taxpayer dollars, and inconvenience military families. Colorado Springs is home to a proud military community and a thriving aerospace ecosystem, and significant national security missions and units, all of which are critical to U.S. Space Command."
"Coloradans and Americans should all be provided full transparency and the full details of this poor decision. We hope other vital military units and missions are retained and expanded in Colorado Springs. Colorado remains an ideal location for future missions, including Golden Dome."
Colorado Democratic Lt. Governor Dianne Primavera stated:
"Space is critical to every component of American life, from our economy to our national security. This ill-advised decision by the White House to move Space Command from its rightful home in Colorado Springs will significantly harm our military readiness and national security and uproot military families."
"Our unparalleled Aerospace & Defense ecosystem has been vital to Space Command achieving Full Operational Capability and executing the mission. This decision is deeply disappointing."
According to their statement, Colorado is "home to the largest private Aerospace industry per capita in the country."
Trump announced last month that he wants a nationwide ban on mail-in voting.
With a lack of support even among Republicans, Trump's new retaliatory tactic may soon be employed against more than just Colorado.
