President Donald Trump on Saturday floated the idea of renaming more bodies of water, following his efforts to change the names of the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario.
“We’ve got the gulf. We’ve got a beautiful lake,” Trump said at a rally in Clarksville, Tennessee. “Now, somebody said, you need a river. … We need a river. We need an ocean.”
Trump mused that he could rebrand either the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, and he appeared to joke that the new name could be in honor of him.
“We call it ‘Trump Ocean’ or, or, ‘Ocean of the Americas,’ something like that,” Trump said to some laughter and applause. “Before I get out, I think we should have an ocean. And we need a great river.”
Trump last year renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, sparking diplomatic tensions with Mexico, a fight with the Associated Press after the media outlet refused to use the new name and other tensions.
Trump in August also renamed Lake Ontario, which is between New York and Canada, as Lake America. The move came amid a feud with Canadian leaders over trade and tariffs.
The president can use executive authority to rename bodies of water and other geographic features. Private companies that offer online maps have generally acceded to Trump’s new names.
In his rally remarks Saturday, Trump said he would not change the name of the Hudson River, which runs through his home state of New York and is named for explorer Henry Hudson.
“He did a good job of setting up that sucker a long time ago,” Trump said.
The president also said he would not change the name of the Mississippi River, which helps set the Western boundary of Tennessee, adding that he has a particular affinity for the state because of his election outcomes.
“I love Mississippi. We won that state by so much,” Trump said.
Trump last month also suggested renaming the state of New Mexico as “New America.” That move would probably require action by the state and Congress, and the president last week said it would be “up to” New Mexicans to make the change.
“I’m not going to push it, but a lot of people are liking it a lot,” Trump said in a video he released to endorse a Republican congressional candidate in the state.
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