The Dictatorship
Can Republicans actually change the name of the Gulf of Mexico?
Donald Trump made news on multiple fronts during his latest Mar-a-Lago press conference, but arguably the strangest development was the president-elect’s announcement about the Gulf of Mexico.
According to the Republican“we” will soon be “changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.” He added that he believes the new name has “a beautiful ring” to it, adding that as far as he’s concerned, rebranding the body of water would be “appropriate.”
By all appearances, Trump was quite serious about this and gave no indication that he was kidding.
Soon after, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene appeared on a far-right podcast and said she had already directed her staff to “immediately draft legislation” to implement the president-elect’s latest priority. “Congress has to do this,” the Georgia Republican declaredadding: “You better bet we are absolutely going to change the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Let’s go!”
It’s difficult to say with confidence whether, and to what extent, the incoming president and his allies will pursue this goal. After all, Trump, who has a notoriously short attention span, floats all kinds of weird ideas that he routinely discards. Similarly, hundreds of legislative proposals are introduced every year that go completely ignored.
In other words, Republicans such as Trump and Greene might like the idea of changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there will be any serious follow-through.
But while the political world waits to see whether the GOP invests any meaningful time and effort into this weird goal, a related question hangs overhead: Is this even possible?
My BLN colleague Zeeshan Aleem”https://www.BLN.com/opinion/BLN-opinion/trump-gulf-mexico-america-greenland-panama-canal-rcna186632″ target=”_blank”>made the case that this is at least theoretically possible, since U.S. presidents have the authority to “change the names of landmarks.”
The Washington Post published a related report along these lines:
The U.S. Board on Geographic Names is a federal interagency organization that is responsible for maintaining uniform geographic name usage throughout the federal government. The board operates under the interior secretary. The board’s Foreign Names Committee is responsible for standardizing foreign place names. The committee is composed of representatives from federal agencies, including several appointees specializing in geography and cartography. Members are appointed every two years. While the BGN does not create names for geographical features, it approves or rejects names proposed by others based on its established policies.
Trump’s choice to serve as the interior secretary, for what it’s worth, is North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who seems eager to go along with the incoming president’s wishes.
All of which is to say, it is at least possible for Republicans to pursue such a name change, though it would lead to a related challenge: As Zeeshan’s piece added, if the Trump administration succeeded on this, “that doesn’t mean other countries will go along with changing the name of a massive body of water whose name dates back more than four centuries.”
As for how our neighbors to the south feel about all of this, Bloomberg News reported that Mexico’s president responded to Trump’s idea by suggesting that instead of changing the name of the Gulf, she’s wondering about renaming part of the United States.
A day after the incoming US president said the body of water between his country, Mexico and the Caribbean should be called the “Gulf of America,” Claudia Sheinbaum presented early maps of the Americas at her daily press briefing. The Gulf of Mexico’s name has held since the early 17th century and is recognized by the United Nations, she said. Sheinbaum also joked that states including California and Texas could revert to their former name, “America Mexicana.”
“It sounds good, doesn’t it?” Sheinbaum rhetorically asked reporters.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
The Dictatorship
Senate returns to Washington after Sen. Lindsey Graham’s death with uncertain agenda
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans returned to Washington on Monday with an uncertain agenda after the sudden death of prominent Republican Lindsey Grahama committee chairman and key player who served as a crucial ally of President Donald Trump.
Graham, 71, died Saturday evening after a tear in his aortaaccording to a statement from his office Sunday. The shocking news came as another prominent Republican senator, former Republican leader Mitch McConnell, has been hospitalized for almost a month. McConnell broke a weekslong silence about his health Sunday, saying he was still recovering after suffering from pneumonia and falling in his home.
The continued absence of McConnell, R-Ky., and the surprise death of the South Carolina senator have shaken Republicans who were already at odds with Trump and stalled on several priorities as they return from a two-week recess. And the reduced Republican numbers in the 53-47 Senate are sure to add confusion to what was already expected to be a chaotic and difficult few months before the November midterm elections.
Despite consolidated power in Washington, Republicans have been unable to move much of their legislation forward as the Senate, House and White House have disagreed on legislative priorities and as Trump has criticized Senate Republicans, in particular, for not passing his legislation to require proof of citizenship for voters. Graham, who was one of Trump’s closest friends in the Senate, often served as a pivotal intermediary.
“He was a great — like a gauge, a temperature gauge of the Senate,” Trump said of Graham on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, noting he had talked to Graham on Saturday. “He could go in and get something approved. He would just get people on his side.”
As the Senate convened Monday, Graham’s desk was draped in black cloth and held a vase of white roses, as is customary when a senator dies in office. In his opening remarks, Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said “it’s difficult to count the ways in which Lindsey’s friendship made this job richer and its burdens lighter.”
Graham “was as loyal as they come and a trusted adviser,” Thune said.
Republican priorities are stalled
The Senate left town two weeks ago after a rough few weeks for Republicans. Trump blocked senators from confirming one of his own nomineesasked them to fund parts of his White House ballroom project despite opposition and forced them to defend the Iran was even as they questioned the strategy and endgame.
He also refused to sign a bipartisan, election year housing bill that had passed overwhelmingly in both chambers, arguing that they should pass his bill to require proof of citizenship, the SAVE America Act, instead. The housing bill became law Friday at midnight after he declined to sign it but did not veto it.
The alliance between Trump and Senate Republicans has also been weakened after the president endorsed the opponents of two Republican senators who had been reliable votes, John Cornyn of Texas and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. Cassidy challenged Trump directly on the Iran war in a Capitol meeting between Trump and Republicans just before they left town.
Senate’s agenda is uncertain
Republicans return to a number of important agenda items, including the confirmation of Trump’s pick for attorney general, Todd Blancheand the confirmation of Jay Claytonwhom Trump selected to be director of national intelligence and later temporarily blocked. Both will testify in confirmation hearings this week.
Senate Republicans also must find a way to navigate Democratic opposition and Trump’s continued ire to keep the government open and prevent a government shutdown when the current fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. Graham was a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, as is McConnell.
Graham also sat on the Judiciary Committee that will consider Blanche’s nomination and is the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, which has been under pressure from House Republicans and Trump to move a budget package with increased defense spending for Iran.
There is also bipartisan legislation to move forward on a package of Russia sanctions that Graham and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut had announced on Friday after an agreement with the Trump administration.
Blumenthal told The Associated Press on Sunday that Graham was “absolutely focused on this moment” as they announced the sanctions package after months of negotiations. He said he hopes Graham’s memory will inspire the Senate to move forward.
“We’ve really reached this moment where all of the stars are aligned and we will be lacking Lindsey’s spectacular advocacy,” Blumenthal said.
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., also urged passage of the sanctions bill as they spoke about Graham on the Senate floor Monday.
Graham’s death came after a trip to Ukraine
Senate leaders have not announced how they will honor Graham, who died after a tear in the inner wall of the aorta, called an aortic dissection, related to hardening of Graham’s arteries, according to his office. An official cause of death will be disclosed after toxicological and microscopic testing, his office said.
Graham, a prominent South Carolina Republican and former Air Force lawyer who served in Congress for more than three decades, had just returned from a trip to Ukraine. Thune said it was Graham’s 10th trip to the country, and he “died with his boots on.”
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster on Monday appointed Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, as his temporary replacement in the Senate. She will serve for the remainder of his term, which ends in January.
A special election will be held next month to pick a new Republican nominee in the general election for Graham’s seat. He had been seeking a fifth term this year.
Possible candidates include three Republicans who fell short for the party’s nomination for governor this year — Rep. Nancy Mace, Rep. Ralph Norman and Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette. Also in the mix is Rep. Russell Fry, who was elected to the House in 2022.
McConnell not expected to return immediately
McConnell’s Sunday announcement revealed for the first time that a fall led to his hospitalization, breaking the silence about his condition after weeks of mounting speculation about his health.
The Kentucky Republican, who is retiring in January, said in a statement that he was “briefly unconscious” around the time he was first taken to the hospital in June and has undergone a battery of tests to try to determine what led to his fall. He said he was also treated for mild pneumonia and has been moved to a rehabilitation facility.
“My doctors have confirmed that I didn’t break any bones or suffer a concussion. I didn’t have a heart attack or a stroke. I don’t have any tumors or hemorrhages,” McConnell said, adding that he is now “regaining my strength.”
He said he cannot return to the Senate “quite yet.”
A dozen state attorneys general sued Monday to block Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, citing the harm the megamerger could pose to competition in Hollywood.
The deal would consolidate two powerhouse movie studios, several popular streaming services and the national news networks CBS and BLN into a single company under the purview of the billionaire Trump-aligned Ellison family.
That consolidation, greenlit by the Justice Department’s antitrust division last month, would negatively reshape the production landscape in Hollywood by depriving studios of the blockbuster series they rely on to generate revenue, the state law enforcement officials maintain.
The concerns in the lawsuit echo the “unequivocal opposition” to the merger voiced by thousands of industry professionals in an open letter in April.
In the lawsuit, the states argue the merger would “extinguish competition between Paramount and Warner Bros. and inflict substantial harm on movie theatres, basic cable distributors, and, ultimately, audiences nationwide,” and that it “combines two
of the nation’s five major film distributors, leaving only four to control over 85 percent of all wide-release theatrical films in the United States.”
The state-led challenge poses the most significant legal barrier in the country to that new media landscape becoming reality. The United Kingdom’s antitrust regulator is also considering action.
Consolidation in markets “leads to increased unaffordability, a loss of good paying job opportunities and fewer choices for consumers. It gives too few too much power,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a press conference shortly after the lawsuit was filed. “Antitrust enforcement is democracy’s check on oligarchy.”
Paramount said the lawsuit “distorts settled antitrust law and is based on misrepresentation of competition in the entertainment industry today.”
The media giant characterized the merger as a means to create a “stronger competitor against dominant streaming and technology platforms who have harmed the market for theatrical exhibition and jobs in the entertainment industry.”
Movie producer David Ellison’s Skydance Media bought Paramount last year after receiving financial backing from his father Larry Ellison, the billionaire Oracle co-founder and personal friend of President Donald Trump. He then launched a bidding war with Netflix for Warner Bros., which had been put up for auction last year as part of a strategy to manage its $35 billion debt load.
The Ellisons ultimately prevailed over Netflix in February after Warner’s board announced that Paramount Skydance’s offer, which involved $40 billion worth of personal financing from the elder Ellison, was superior to an agreement it had previously struck with Netflix.
The Trump administration’s swift approval of the merger reignited speculation over his personal relationship with Larry Ellison. The deal would put the Ellison family in control of BLN, a news organization the president frequently decries without evidence as “fake news.”
Trump publicly involved himself in the competing Warner Bros. bids last year, saying that it was “imperative” BLN be sold and that its current ownership should not be in charge of the company. The president has since downplayed his personal role in the mergerbut concerns about what the deal could mean for the future of BLN still loom large.
The Trump administration approved the Ellison family’s acquisition of Paramount Globalthe parent company of CBS News, last year after the network agreed to shell out $16 millionto settle a lawsuit Trump brought over a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee. Trump sought $20 billion in damages over claims that the Harris interview, which aired during the 2024 presidential race, had been deceptively edited, a legal claim that experts said almost certainly would have failed.
With Ellison at the helm, Paramount Skydance also acquired Bari Weiss’ media company, The Free Press, and installed Weiss as editor-in-chief at CBS News. Weiss’ control over programming has since raised questions of objectivity and spurred an exodus of many of the network’s most prominent career journalists.
Erum Salam contributed to this report.
Sydney Carruth is a breaking news reporter covering national politics and policy for MS NOW. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at SydneyCarruth.46 or follow her work on X and Bluesky.
The Dictatorship
Judge slams Trump-IRS ‘settlement,’ refers attorneys for possible disciplinary actions
By now, Donald Trump has probably grown accustomed to legal setbacks in court, though his case against the IRS has started to backfire in ways the president didn’t see coming. The Associated Press reported:
A federal judge said Monday that President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS over his leaked tax returns was filed for an “improper purpose” as she referred attorneys for disciplinary actions.
The ruling from U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams amounts to a stinging rebuke of the Republican president’s lawsuit, characterizing it as an exercise in self-dealing in which he sued an entity that is effectively under his control.
The basic details of Trump’s IRS lawsuit are likely familiar: During his first term, a contractor leaked his tax returns, and six years later, the president has filed suit against the tax agency, saying he’s entitled to $10 billion in taxpayer funds.
In May, he voluntarily withdrew his own litigationand soon afterward, the administration unveiled his reward for having done so: a compensation fund worth $1.766 billionwhich was quickly condemned by members of both parties as a “slush fund” that would be used to benefit the White House’s political allies.
That bipartisan pushback appears to have forced the president to back off his plans for the fund. And at that point, the case appeared to have run its course: Trump filed a rather preposterous $10 billion lawsuit against his own administration; he then abandoned that case before it could be fully adjudicated; and that was that.
Except, it wasn’t quite that simple, and one of the underlying legal problems persisted: The federal judge in the case, responding to a request filed by 35 former federal judges calling on her to reopen the case, raised serious concerns in late May, ordering Trump and his lawyers to address allegations that he committed fraud on the court.
In a four-page orderWilliams said she intended to investigate “grievous allegations” that the hasty deal to resolve the dubious case was “premised on deception.” (This same judge, as recently as late April, expressed skepticism about the propriety of the casesince it appeared the president was, for all intents and purposes, both the plaintiff and the defendant.)
More than a month later, she apparently did not like what she discoveredconcluding that Trump and his lawyers acted “in bad faith” and filed a civil suit “for an improper purpose.”
“The nature of the suit itself and the conduct of the Parties and counsel from its filing make plain that this was an attempt to use the Court to provide some legitimacy to an agreement to confer immunity to people and entities affiliated with the President and to earmark billions of dollars from American taxpayers to redress grievances not defined in the law,” Williams wrote.
The judge also prohibited the parties from even referring to it as a “settlement.”
Just as notably, as CNBC reportedWilliams “referred Trump’s lawyer in the lawsuit, Alejandro Brito, to the Florida bar for consideration on whether Brito should be disciplined in light of the findings in the new order.” The judge also “ordered that a copy of her ruling be mailed to the State Bar of New York, of which Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is a member, as well as to the District of Columbia Bar, of which Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward is a member.”
The developments come just two days before Blanche, Trump’s choice to serve as attorney general, is scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a confirmation hearing.
A spokesperson for the Republican’s legal team said in a written statement, “The IRS wrongly allowed a rogue, politically-motivated employee to leak private and confidential information about President Trump, his family, and the Trump Organization to the New York Times, ProPublica and other left-wing news outlets, which was then illegally released to millions of people. President Trump continues to hold those who wrong America and Americans accountable.”
The statement made no effort to address allegations of professional misconduct or the fact that Trump’s lawyers just received a brutal smackdown in court.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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.”
- Capitol agenda: Johnson moves to thaw House floor
- Senate returns to Washington after Sen. Lindsey Graham’s death with uncertain agenda
- How best to honor Lindsey Graham’s legacy? Republicans are divided.
- Coalition of states sue to stop Paramount-Warner megamerger
- Judge slams Trump-IRS ‘settlement,’ refers attorneys for possible disciplinary actions
- Trump and Tim Scott back Lindsey Graham’s sister as his temporary replacement
- Lindsey Graham: Maddening, gracious, and an ally I was glad to have
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