WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that U.S. Space Command's headquarters will move to Alabama from Colorado, reversing a Biden administration decision.
In remarks at the White House, Trump said he was making the shift in part because of Colorado's use of mail-in voting.
"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," Trump said in the Oval Office.
Colorado allows for in-person elections, but every voter automatically receives a ballot in the mail. According to Colorado's secretary of state, about 92% of the ballots cast in last November's election were a mail ballot, with about 8% voting in person.
Trump said last month that he wanted to ban mail-in voting nationwide, an announcement that has already been met with pushback from some Republicans.
"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 said while flanked by the Alabama lawmakers who lobbied for Space Command's move to their state.
Trump lost Colorado, a state with two Democratic senators, in the last three presidential elections. Alabama, meanwhile, is a deep red state that has consistently voted Republican in presidential elections.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and several Alabama Republicans at the White House event noted that it was President Joe Biden who changed Space Command’s headquarters to Colorado from what was supposed to be Alabama.
Hegseth said that Trump was restoring its headquarters to "precisely where it should be, based on what the Space Force, the Air Force, your leadership," which he said will "give us strategic advantage in the future."
"That is Huntsville, Alabama," the defense secretary continued. "We are way ahead in space, but this will ensure we stay leaps and bounds ahead, because that's the most important domain. Whoever controls the skies will control the future warfare. And Mr. President, today you're ensuring that happens."
The Colorado congressional delegation, comprised of both Republicans and Democrats, said in a joint statement that Trump’s decision would harm the state and the nation.
“Moving Space Command sets our space defense apparatus back years, wastes billions of taxpayer dollars, and hands the advantage to the converging threats of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea,” the statement read.
“Being prepared for any threats should be the nation’s top priority; a crucial part of that is keeping in place what is already fully operational,” it continued, adding that the bipartisan group of lawmakers will take the “necessary action” to keep Command in Colorado Springs, which it called the program’s “appropriate home.”
While Trump had announced, and it was later confirmed, that Huntsville was the preferred location for U.S. Space Command headquarters, the Biden administration halted those plans in 2023 because of concerns with Alabama's restrictive abortion law. As a result, the head of Space Command decided that year that the military branch would build out its headquarters in Colorado Springs, instead.
Space Command is a unified Pentagon command comprised of elements from the Army, Navy and Air Force. It is distinct from the separate military branch known as Space Force.
Trump said Tuesday that the move to Alabama would result in 30,000 jobs in the state and lead to hundreds of billions of dollars in investment. "Most importantly, this decision will help America defend and dominate the high frontier, as they call it," he said.
The president added that Space Command, from its new location, will play a "key role" in the development of the "Golden Dome," the missile defense system Trump wants modeled after Israel's Iron Dome.
"We’re going to be having a Golden Dome that the likes of which nobody’s ever seen before, the finest, the best," he said.
