Today, Explained - The Gulf of America?

Episode Date: March 3, 2025

What started as a liberal joke is now a MAGA reality. Just check your map app. But it’s not just Google, Apple, and Microsoft falling in line. This episode was produced by Avishay Artsy and Travis Larchuk, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Andrea Kristinsdottir, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast Support Today, Explained by becoming a Vox Member today: http://www.vox.com/members President Donald Trump signing a proclamation renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America aboard Air Force One in February. Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What was your most shocking moment from the Oval Office meeting between Trump and Zelensky on Friday? I think mine might have been when some reporter asked the Ukrainian president why he wasn't wearing a suit. Do you own a suit? That's Brian Glenn from Real America's Voice, a right-wing, conspiracy-loving cable news channel that only recently got access to the White House when the new administration started hand-picking who gets to hang out with the president. Real America's voice is in, the Associated Press is out. You remember the AP,

founded in 1846, 59 Pulitzers, King of Style. They're currently suing the Trump administration over being banned from the Oval Office. And why were they banned? Because they won't call it the Gulf of America. We are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. How the president renamed the Gulf coming up on Today Explained. Thumbtack presents the ins and outs

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you won't be anxious anymore. But instead, worry can make you more anxious, like you're never going to get to the end of the worrying. If it's a behavior, why not change it? This week on The Gray Area, I talked to Olga Hazan about our personalities and whether we can change them. Listen to The Gray Area with me, Sean Ellington. New episodes every Monday, available everywhere. Today explained here with Matt Vizer, White House bureau chief for The Washington Post. Matt, it was on day one of President Donald Trump's second term where he mentioned the Gulf of America at his inauguration. Where did this idea come from?

He wasn't running on the Gulf of America platform per se, was he? No. And there's a couple of different aspects of this. First is sort of the origin of this idea generally, which doesn't necessarily come from Trump. And then secondly is a little bit of indication of how it may have gotten onto his radar. The origins generally date back to at least 2010

as somewhat of a joke. Stephen Colbert on his show on Comedy Central had referenced raising money for the BP oil spill at the time off the Gulf Coast in the Gulf of Mexico. This is one time when you want to hear that a charity is skimming from the top. And he named the fund that he was raising money for the Colbert Nation Gulf of America Fund. I don't think we can call it the Gulf of Mexico anymore.

We broke it, we bought it. It was a joke. He raised about $100,000 to help those who had been impacted by the oil spill. And actually it was, the way that he raised money was from the Microsoft search engine called Bing. Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. So he said Bing as many times as he could,

and they would donate money for every time he said Bing. What a shame we didn't have one more Bing. $100,000! So that was kind of the joke, the ruse, the total satire. Two years later, a Mississippi lawmaker also does it as a little bit of a kind of a trolling of his Republican colleagues at the time, making fun of them for being afraid of Hispanics

and not calling it the Gulf of Mexico. So he kind of did it as a joke to rename the Gulf off of Mississippi as the Gulf of America. So let's just get rid of the Mexico thing and let's have the Gulf of America. And we'll be very unique in this country and we'll be on an island unto ourselves. Everybody else can have the Gulf of Mexico,

but we'll have the Gulf of America. Again, joking. More recently, what we've been able to trace a little bit is conservative influencers started to refer to it as the Gulf of America. The one that I traced it to is a guy, Kevin Pasoviak. Close listeners and followers may know his brother, Jack Pasobiak, who's sort of a conspiracy theorist, well known in the right wing ecosphere. Proud Boys USA is here.

What's up? What is up? Proud of your boy, Proud Boys. His brother Kevin is less well known, but Kevin was in the golf last April with a buddy, and they had rented wave runners. And when I talked to Kevin, he sort of recounted the whole scene

and just felt like it was such an America thing to do out there in the water. And he said, it came to me. It's like you see Hulk Hogan and think, man, that's America. What you gonna do when Donald Trump and all the Trump-a-maniacs run wild on you, brother? Just having fun in the sun, a Florida man kind of moment. And so he tweets at the time a message saying,

Cruising the Gulf of America, its proper name come 2025. Jack Psobiak, his brother, retweets him at the time to his three million followers who include Donald Trump. And he later sort of resurrects this idea closer to the inauguration in December. While we're at it, Gulf of Mexico? I think you mean Gulf of America. So that's an indication of maybe how Trump starts to think maybe we should rename this the Gulf of America. Trump

first makes this announcement in a press conference in early January like two weeks before the inauguration. We're going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America which has a beautiful ring that covers a lot of territory. The Gulf of America, what a beautiful name. And it's appropriate. And gets his staff to rewrite some executive orders and certainly it hits a lot of our radars at that time and in the inaugural address.

This sort of very prominent sweeping speech meant to indicate the new priorities of a new president. And Gulf of America, it turns out, is one of those key agenda items. The Gulf of America and we will restore the... How does Mexico feel about it? Not great. The Mexican president has sort of expressed opposition to this. Why don't we call it Mexican America?

It sounds nice, right? Since 1607, the constitution of Apatzingán referred to it as Mexican America. We're going to call it Mexican America. It sounds beautiful, right? They have threatened to file lawsuits against mapmakers. Like Google Maps has changed their maps. And the Mexican president has talked

about filing lawsuits against Google as a result of it. So who knows how this could blow up in diplomatic channels down the line. Is there an official way to go about doing this more official than an executive order? Could Congress make this feel a little more than a petty presidential whim? Yeah, the Congress could also change the name, which would make it harder to change back. So Marjorie Taylor Greene, almost immediately after Trump mentioned this in early January,

filed legislation to do it. It's absolutely the right thing to do. We change post office names all the time up here. You better bet we are absolutely going to change the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Let's go. I don't know that the legislation is actively gonna go anywhere,

but legislation would be harder to overturn. So you're in a scenario now where a future Democratic president could say, you know what, that Gulf of America thing was ridiculous. We're changing the name back to, you know what, that Gulf of America thing was ridiculous, we're changing the name back to, you know, Gulf of Mexico or Gulf of Obama. Come on, man. Or Gulf of Joe Biden.

Come on, man. You know, like, they'll change it to something else. But like, because it's an executive order, it can kind of quickly and more easily be undone by a future president. It's funny, because you don't really think about who gets to decide what a body of water is called until some president just declares

he's single-handedly renaming one. Who does get to decide? The tricky part here is that it is a shared body of water and different countries refer to it by a different name now. And so it's created a lot of controversy over whose side are you on? As of this morning, Google Maps has officially changed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America

on their platforms after President Trump's executive order. Google says it's their policy to change names when they have been updated by the government. Apple officially became the latest company to update the Gulf of Mexico on its maps to the Gulf of America. Reportedly, if you're in Mexico,

it still looks like the Gulf of Mexico, but if you're in other countries, you'll see both names. Wow. I know. Even Bing, the one that Stephen Colbert was kind of using to raise money for the Gulf of Mexico BP oil spill. Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing, Bing. Bing changed to Gulf of America on their map. It still exists.

It still exists. And BP also. BP, Chevron, all these oil companies have also changed to the Gulf of America. Who has flat out told the president no? It sounds like some government agencies are maybe dragging their feet. Some people are just straight up confused. But some people out here are kind of pushing back, right?

Yeah. I mean, most prominently, the Associated Press, for example, is still calling it the Gulf of Mexico, in part by pointing out that it's a global wire service that has readers in Mexico and around the world in countries that still refer to it as Gulf of Mexico. The Washington Post has a similar style approach. The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, a lot of other news outlets are still referring to it as the Gulf

of Mexico, while adding context around what Trump has declared it as. But that's created a major conflict with the White House and resulted in the Associated Press being kicked out of various press availabilities that the president has at the White House or on Air Force One. Right there, see the Gulf of America, which is a beautiful name. Most people agree. I don't know. It's, you know, AP has been terrible.

I think they're radical left. I think they're third rate reporters. The Associated Press has a very prominent style book. And because a lot of people follow what they do, I think the White House got particularly upset at them. I mean, you've reported on this story, Matt. You've thought about it more than most, who maybe just dismissed it

as sort of an inconsequential joke. Does it matter what we call the Gulf of Mexico? I think it can come across as a joke, but I do think it reflects like an underlying attitude that Trump has. And I think it's a reflection of how he's viewing the world and America's place in it. It's that America is dominant and is going to take over

and is going to be at the forefront. And it reflects, I think, his dismissal of countries who think otherwise. And so I think it has set in an early marker for For diplomacy the fact that he's calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America is like one reflection I think of his whole outlook on on the world and how he's gonna approach dealing with foreign leaders going to approach dealing with foreign leaders. Matt Vizer, WashingtonPost.com, where it's still called the Gulf of Mexico. Why big, powerful businesses, some of the most powerful on earth, were so quick to accept

Trump's newly named Gulf when we return on Today Explained. explained. Support for Today Explained comes from NetSuite. It takes a lot of guts to run your own business, especially because you never know what the future has in store for you. When will a bull market turn into a bear market, for example? When will inflation start to drop for example? And when will rates rise and fall and rise again for example? Unfortunately there is not a crystal ball but there is NetSuite by Oracle. And who needs a crystal ball when you have NetSuite

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Hello podcast listeners. I'm Sean Romser, I'm here from the Today Explained show and I've got some news you can use. We're taking Vox Media podcasts on the road and heading back to Austin, Texas for the South by Southwest Festival. March 8th through 10th, we'll be doing special live episodes of hit shows, including our show, Today Explained.

Where Should We Begin with Esther Perrell, Pivot, A Touch More with Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe, Not Just Football with Cam Hayward, and more, presented by Smartsheet. The Vox Media podcast stage at South by Southwest is open to all South by Southwest badge holders. I'll be the guy in a Mr. T costume. We hope to see you at the Austin Convention Center soon.

You can visit voxmedia.com slash S-X-S-W to learn more. That's voxmedia.com slash S-X-S-W-A. Estar escuchando a Hoy Explicado. Today Explained. My name is Emily Stewart and I'm a senior correspondent at Business Insider. And we used to work together. We did used to work together. We did used to work together.

We're not scared of each other, even though we work at different places. But you know who is scared, it seems, Emily, Google, Apple, Microsoft. Why are the big boys scared? I mean, I think a lot of companies are in a moment of just some trepidation around the political environment, right? You have a White House that is moving very fast and breaking a lot of things, whether that be executive orders on diversity, equity, inclusion,

the president trying to move on tariffs. It's just kind of a real moment of uncertainty. Businesses, above all, they really like certainty. You want to know that if you're going to make an investment that's going to pay off for you in the next five years, and we are not in a moment where businesses can really guarantee that. Even though the economy's not in a bad way yet, it feels like it might be soon, but it isn't yet, right?

It's bullish out here. Yeah. I mean, the economy is good. Consumers are spending, even though everybody's mad about inflation. You also have a Republican regime that usually is good for business, right? This means lower regulations. This probably means a more favorable tax situation. But again, like I said before,

if you are in a moment where you kind of don't know what will happen tomorrow, it makes it pretty hard to feel good about today. And you're saying this isn't just Microsoft, Apple, Google. This is a broader situation? Yeah. I think across corporate America, you are kind of getting this sense

that there's some pretty broad anxiety. I wrote a piece of Business Insider called it kind of scaredy cat capitalism. Scaredy cat capitalism. Right? Kind of fun. Tell us about the other scaredy cats. It wasn't just the scaredy cats who are up there grinning behind Trump as he was inaugurated?

Yeah. So I think you can kind of look in this a couple different ways and see this kind of anxiety manifest itself. I think for me, kind of one of the more obvious places to look is around diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, which the president has spoken out against pretty forcefully. I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life.

And he's also asked his agencies to kind of go hunting for potential targets for lawsuits for just regular private companies that are engaging in DEI. And now he's saying you can't engage in illegal DEI. That's what the I stands, right? Diversity, equity, and illegal? Well, the question here is that nobody really knows what illegal DEI means.

So what we are seeing is a lot of companies have, some have come out and said, hey, we're going to really roll back on this. We're gonna kind of take a pause. You look like a Target, right? Who had kind of been a Target, of some anti-DEI activism even before this over there. Pride Month displays. Target sales dropped for the first time in six years,

following 2023's conservative backlash over its Pride products in store. Companies like Bud Light, Target, PetSmart, Nike, the North Face, and Adidas have all faced right-wing protests over LGBTQ plus products and ads and partnerships. Children and LGBTQ, it's very adult content, and now they're pushing it in stores. It makes me afraid to go shopping, Charlie.

General Motors cut its DEI section from its annual report. Pepsi had a breakdown of its workforce demographics and a line about how it believed in culture of diversity, equity and inclusion as a competitive advantage. That's gone. Even a Pinterest, which I guess most people don't think about Pinterest as much, but they used to have a section that was called inclusion and diversity. It's now called inclusion and belonging. Pinterest is scared of Donald Trump?

Pinterest. I mean, Chipotle had a section that was called diversity, equity and inclusion. Now it is culture and inclusivity. Okay, so apart from DEI, there's also some lawsuits being settled in a very hasty fashion. Tell us about those. Yeah, so in December, ABC News, which is owned by Disney, agreed to pay $15 million to Trump's future presidential library

in order to settle a defamation lawsuit. Trump had sued the network and George Stephanopoulos for defamation after the anchor incorrectly stated on air that Trump had been found liable for rape. In fact, the jury in the E. Jean Carroll case found Trump liable for sexual abuse and explicitly not for rape. Metta in January cut a deal to give $22 million to the library to settle a lawsuit back from 2021 around the January 6 riots and Trump being removed from their platforms. Elon Musk's ex also has paid money to the Trump library and reached a settlement over similar situation. Our case will prove this censorship is unlawful, it's unconstitutional, and it's completely un-American. We're going to hold big tech very accountable.

Paramount is resisting settling a lawsuit, filed over a 60-minute segment with Kamala Harris. They took out her answer, and they inserted an entirely different answer that made her sound competent. But a lot of people think it will probably settle because they want to do a business deal with Skypens and Paramount would rather do the deal and probably wouldn't mind spending the money to settle, but we don't know if they're actually going to settle.

And basically, I think the bigger picture here is that Trump likes to sue companies, right? He always has. And these are maybe the types of lawsuits that if you're a Disney, if you're a Meta, you, in normal times, definitely have the money and the wherewithal to fight these lawsuits. But right now, the guy suing you is in the White House, and they are making the calculation

that it's just better to make this payment, to reach the you is in the White House, and they are making the calculation that it's just better to make this payment, to reach the settlement, to do this donation and kind of move on and be in a better relationship with the guy in the White House. It seems alarming that the biggest tech companies and media companies in the world are so scared of this administration.

I mean, that's the thing I can't get over, because, I mean, obviously, Joe Schmo lives in fear, but, like, the mouse, the house of mouse? ABC, George Stephanopoulos? Like, these are people whose job it is to stand up to the government. Why aren't they flexing, Emily? I mean, I do think it's important to recognize that a lot of publicly traded companies, big corporations answer to their shareholders.

And their shareholders might be looking around right now and saying, hey, like if you play ball with this administration, this is gonna be better for us overall, right? You think of an Apple that recently made a big announcement about investments in the United States and jobs in the United States. Apple's also facing a scenario where it may be facing the US putting tariffs on goods

from China. And so, you know, there's a world where it's like, okay, I'm nice to Donald Trump today, say, hey, buddy, like, we're making all these investments. And when those tariffs do come down, maybe you get an exception or maybe you can at least get him on the phone to talk. And so I do think there is some level of this is, for better or for worse, kind of smart business. But also, like I said before, a lot of these companies don't want to be a target,

and it's not just of the president, and it's not just of a lawsuit. You think about these social media campaigns. Like, I think a lot about Bud Light back in 2023. This month, I celebrated my day 365 of womanhood, about these social media campaigns. Like I think a lot about Bud Light back in 2023. This month I celebrated my day 365 of womanhood and Bud Light sent me possibly the best gift ever, a can with my face on it. Huge blow up over a teeny tiny marketing campaign that they did with a transgender influencer

and that really hurt their business and it hurt their reputation. Which is why their latest Super Bowl commercials feature Post Malone, Shane Gillis, and a whole lot of like beer and barbecue. Your mower smokes meat? Oh, a smoker cuts grass. Hell yeah. I wonder, you know, it seems like there are sometimes risks of doing business this way. Are there risks to all of these companies who are falling in line right now and hoping for a good deal with Donald Trump

as the years follow. Yeah, you think about kind of, let's say, back in 2017 or Trump's first term, right? And there were, companies didn't play as much footsie with Trump as they are right now. But a lot of them did join these kind of advisory councils to the president and around Charlottesville when there were racist riots in Charlottesville and the president said that you also had people that were

Very fine people on both sides all of these companies backed out and said we're quitting the council We're quitting the council under pressure six executives have now resigned in protest from the president's 28-member manufacturing council. Campbell Soup CEO Denise Morrison was the latest to distance herself, saying Trump needs to be unambiguous in denouncing white supremacists. And that I think was an example of a moment where a lot of companies, it wound up turning around on them and kind of being a moment of bad publicity for being a part of these councils.

That being said, they're all back now. Everybody's fine. Well, Emily, before we go, I wonder, you know, for those of us who don't like to live in fear, are there any businesses out there marching to the beat of their own drum in this perilous moment for American industry? Yeah. I mean, like Costco and G.B. Morgan have both come out and said, we are sticking with our DEI initiatives.

This is how we are doing things. I do think it's important to point out too, like, just because you're not talking about it as much doesn't mean you're not doing this kind of stuff. What's going on internally is much more important than kind of what you're saying in a little annual report to the SEC. And while I don't buy my eggs at Costco, I do recall, do you, the price of a hot dog

at Costco? It's a dollar, right? You know, I've never been to Costco. It's a dollar. You're such a sinny girl. It's a dollar fifty, Emily. It's been a dollar fifty for like fifty years. Since the dawn of time, it's been a dollar fifty.

Well, okay, $1.50. Ha ha ha ha ha. ["Business Insider"] Emily Stewart, businessinsider.com, formerly of vox.com, where she's missed. Abhishek Artsy is still here. He produced today's show with Travis Larchuk. They were edited by Jolie Myers,

fact-checked by Laura Bullard, and mixed by Andrea Christen's daughter and Patrick Boyd. This is America Explained. Alright, Sean, you can do this promo talking about all the great Vox Media podcasts that are going to be on stage live at South by Southwest this March. You just need a big idea to get people's attention to help them, you know, keep them from hitting the skip button. I don't know. I'm going to throw it out to the group chat. Kara, do you have any ideas? In these challenging times, we're a group of mighty hosts who have banded together to fight disinformation by speaking truth to power, like the Avengers, but with more spandex.

What do you think, Scott? I'm more of an X-Man fan myself. Call me professor. Can I read minds? I can't really read minds, but I can empathize with anyone having a midlife crisis, which is essentially any tech leader. So minds are important, Scott, but we more than that. I think that you can't really separate minds from feelings. And we need to talk about our emotions and explore the layers of our relationships with our partners, coworkers, our families, neighbors, and our adjacent communities.

I just want to add a touch more. From sports and culture to tech and politics, Vox Media has an all-star lineup of podcasts that's great in your feeds, but even better live. That's it. All-stars, get your game on, go play, come see a bunch of Vox Media all stars and also me at South by Southwest on the Vox Media podcast stage presented by Smartsheet and Intuit. March 8th through 10th in Austin, Texas, go to Voxmed.com slash S-X-S-W.

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