Donald Trump and his team certainly appear excited about trying to convince people to start referring to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, but the public appears unconvinced: A national poll from Marquette Law School, released this week, found 71% of Americans oppose the name change. Other recent polling pointed in nearly identical directions.
Evidently, the White House doesn’t care. The Washington Post reported:
On Thursday, for the third day in a row, the White House prevented Associated Press reporters from attending official events, a spokesperson for the news organization confirmed to The Washington Post. An AP reporter was blocked from attending two afternoon events in the Oval Office, including a swearing-in ceremony for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
A day later, it happened for the fourth consecutive day.
By way of an explanation, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Wednesday, “I was very upfront in my briefing on Day 1 that if we feel that there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we are going to hold those lies accountable.” She added, “And it is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America, and I’m not sure why news outlets don’t want to call it that.”
In other words, as far as the president’s chief spokesperson is concerned, it’s a “lie” to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of Mexico. Trump signed an order unilaterally changing the name of the body of water, the argument goes, so everyone has responsibility to just go along with the president’s one-man rebranding campaign.
Two days later, Taylor Budowich, a White House Deputy chief of staff, published a related pitch via social media, accusing the Associated Press of “ignoring the lawful geographic name change,” which according Budowich, “exposes the Associated Press’ commitment to misinformation.”
He did not appear to be kidding.
I received a note a couple of days ago from a reader who suggested the whole “Gulf of America” campaign is too silly to care about. With all of the many abuses and burgeoning scandals surrounding the president and his administration, the reader argued, this is trivia worth ignoring.
It’s not an unreasonable point. In fact, I generally don’t much care what names and phrases Trump comes up with for anything. But it’s worth appreciating the fact that this isn’t just about rebranding a body of water. Rather, this is about a White House that’s waging an aggressive campaign against the free press, and in this instance, is also trying to bully one of the nation’s leading news organizations into submission as part of an Orwellian campaign. There is an apparent expectation in the West Wing that news organizations will either use Trump-approved language, or they should expect to be punished. Welcome to the exciting new era for the First Amendment, in which people and businesses are free to use the words and phrases that Republicans like — or there will be consequences. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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