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Monday, February 10, 2025

A Tremendous Bowl Spectacle Over the Gulf


The president plans to focus on his proposed title change mid-route on Air Pressure One.

collage of a finger pointing at the Gulf of Mexico on a map
Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Paul J. Richards / AFP / Getty; Encyclopedia Britannica / UIG /Getty.

President Donald Trump’s promise—and subsequent govt order—to rename the Gulf of Mexico because the Gulf of America displayed a showman’s aptitude for branding.

At the moment Trump may take that showmanship a step additional when Air Pressure One flies him throughout the Gulf of Mexico from his personal Mar-a-Lago retreat in Palm Seaside, Florida, to New Orleans for the Tremendous Bowl. Trump is contemplating a plan during which, because the airplane crosses the gulf, he’ll convey the group of reporters touring with him—referred to as the “pool”—as much as a distinct cabin, the place he plans to focus on his proposed title change, in keeping with two folks aware of the discussions who requested anonymity to debate carefully held particulars.

Irrespective of that Trump has already floated “Gulf of America” throughout the election, talked about it throughout his inaugural tackle—“a short while from now, we’re going to be altering the title of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America,” he stated to applause—and signed an govt order doing as a lot in his Day One batch of directives. He and his crew are nonetheless discussing this as a Tremendous Bowl Sunday stunt, just like the producers of Rocky making an attempt to squeeze one final sequel out of an growing old franchise. (The White Home didn’t reply to requests for remark.)

Throughout his first time period, Trump commonly visited the press cabin of Air Pressure One, and infrequently introduced the pool as much as his private cabin to talk, taking part in the function of consummate host. As soon as, he invited reporters to affix him in watching a recording of a Democratic presidential major debate, providing colour commentary all through.

And as Trump doubtless understands, the one strategy to compete with the Tremendous Bowl and its colour commentary this night is to supply somewhat little bit of a pre-game present himself.

Trump has typically supplied an isolationist—“America First”—worldview. However since his return to the White Home, the president has nodded to the concept of expansionism as properly. Along with promising to take again the Panama Canal, Trump has additionally talked about buying Greenland and teased about making Canada the 51st state. When pressed by reporters, he has refused to rule out the usage of army or financial pressure in his efforts to grab Greenland and the Panama Canal.

However to date, no less than, his decrees to rename the Gulf of Mexico have prompted as a lot mockery as they’ve intimidation. Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a Democrat, yesterday posted on social media that whereas Trump “is busy unilaterally renaming our bodies of water down south, thought we’d get began up in New England”—alongside a map of the japanese seaboard, with “Gulf of Rhode Island” crudely written throughout the Atlantic Ocean in black marker. And on Friday, Democrat JB Pritzker posted a faux-serious “essential announcement from the Governor of Illinois,” during which he deadpanned that, after a lot examine, the world’s best geographers consider {that a} Nice Lake must be named after a fantastic state, which is why “hereinafter, Lake Michigan shall be referred to as Lake Illinois.”

With Trump, the road between jokes and true coverage will be tough to discern. However as we speak, no less than—and fittingly for Tremendous Bowl Sunday—spectacle appears to be the purpose.

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