Donald Trump claimed Thursday that his latest idea for renaming a geographical landmark prompted a personal call with Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
According to Trump, Pichai told him: “Look, sir, this has to stop.”
Google has previously drawn ire for accommodating the Trump administration’s name changes on its Google Maps service.
Trump recounted the purported exchange during a midterm campaign rally in Sioux City, Iowa, while musing about what he could rename next.
The president touted his executive orders seeking to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” and Lake Ontario as “Lake America,” while also talking about rechristening the state of New Mexico as “New America” and Iran’s Strait of Hormuz as “The Trump Strait.”
He floated the Mississippi and Hudson rivers as candidates for rebranding, but said he didn’t think he’d “get away” with renaming either and suggested he might not even have the courage to try.
Then he turned to the oceans, narrowing his options to the Atlantic and Pacific because he only likes the “biggest and the best.”
Trump tested out new names for the former, including The Ocean Of The Americas and The American Ocean, and at one point teased making an official announcement on Monday.
Then he said: “Google Maps is a big deal. You get it on Google, it’s done.”
Trump said he sent Pichai “a picture of the Atlantic Ocean called the American Ocean.” Pichai, one of a number of Big Tech bosses accused of cozying up to the Trump administration during Trump’s second term, told him: “Look, sir, this has to stop.”
“He thought I was … I was just kidding but…,” Trump said about his wish to rename an ocean, before appearing to leave the door open with one final caveat: “That would be a tough one but you never know in life, do you?”
