I would wager that the White House’s Oval Office has seen more activity in the past three weeks of President Donald Trump’s presidency than in Biden’s first term.
While many moments have been poignant and serious, others have been entertaining and clearly indicative of a “vibe shift” throughout the country.
For example, Trump signed an executive order on his first day back in office, renaming the US portion of the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” The order directed the Secretary of the Interior to officially rename the body of water within 30 days and update all federal maps, documents, and websites accordingly.
According to the original executive order signed in late January, Trump said that the Gulf plays a “pivotal role” in the security and economic prosperity of the United States, and should therefore be named after the U.S.“The Gulf will continue to play a pivotal role in shaping America’s future and the global economy, and in recognition of this flourishing economic resource and its critical importance to our Nation’s economy and its people, I am directing that it officially be renamed the Gulf of America,” his order said.
Google and several other companies have observed the name change. Well, Google did the update for American servers, at least.
But the Associated Press (AP) decided to continue to dead-name the region.
The move by the USAID-funded organization is fascinating in light of all the naming manipulations it has treated us to over the many years of leftist-funded piffle that has been passed off as “journalism.”
Renaming things is what leftists do.
And I will add we taxpayers are funding much of the AP’s propaganda.
Now, the AP reporters thought they were back in 2016 when the #Resistance movement was robust and virtue-signaling the progressive take on events would go unchallenged.
The White House blocked an Associated Press reporter from attending President Donald Trump’s executive order signing Tuesday afternoon, the news organization said, after it continued to refer to the “Gulf of Mexico” instead of adjusting to reflect the administration’s stance that the body of water should now be called the “Gulf of America.”Earlier on Tuesday, the White House warned the AP — known for its stylebook that many newsrooms follow — that if it did not change its guidance on the body of water, its on-call reporter would be blocked from attending the event, the wire service said.And after the news organization did not comply, the White House did just that.
The organization received little sympathy from the Americans whose tax monies it had previously enjoyed.
Interestingly, a lot of common sense terms will be making their way back into our lexicon.
Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy posted to X (formerly Twitter): “In line with my commitment to restoring sanity to @USDOT, the FAA will resume using the term ‘Notice to Airmen’ instead of ‘Notice to Air Missions.’ Also, pilot charts will now reference the Gulf of America and Mt. McKinley. Thanks to President Trump, we are taking back our language, our history, and our country.”
And how did the “Gulf of Mexico” get named, anyway?
Spanish explorers in the 16th century initially referred to the Gulf by various names, such as Mar del Norte (Sea of the North) and Seno Mexicano (Mexican Sound). By the mid-17th century, the “Gulf of Mexico” became standardized on European maps, reflecting Spain’s colonial dominance. While indigenous peoples had their own names for the Gulf, such as the Maya term Chactemal, these were replaced mainly during European colonization.
Personally, I am surprised that the AP didn’t demand it be called Chactemal..but I digress.
Even Encyclopedia Britannica acknowledged the new name but kept the web page’s title as the Gulf of Mexico.
English geographer Richard Hakluyt referred to the “Gulfe of Mexico” in The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589). That same year, Italian cartographer Baptista Boazio produced a map of Sir Francis Drake’s 1585–86 naval campaign against Spanish colonial holdings in the Americas. Boazio depicted Drake’s fleet skirting the edge of the “Baye of Mexico.” Other names, including the “Gulf of New Spain” and the “Florida Sea,” appeared on maps and in publications over subsequent centuries. In 2025 the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN) adopted the name “Gulf of America” for use by U.S. federal agencies in accordance with Pres. Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14172.
It looks like Encyclopedia Britannica won’t officially recognize the name.
Finally, being a reporter asked to cover the President and take an Oval Office meeting is a privilege. I expect journalists and their organizations invited to do so to ask serious questions about policy issues and not make every session an episode in self-promoting dramas.
The era of press briefing virtue-signalling is over.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY