As we have seen time and again, when Trump isn’t immersed in schemes or actions to violate the Ten Commandments (worshipping the almighty dollar, imagining graven images of himself on magazine covers, swearing, playing golf on the Sabbath, committing adultery, stealing wages from contractors, bearing false witness against everyone and everything, pussy-grabbing/coveting his neighbors’ wives, etc. you get the idea), he is obsessed with undoing anything and everything done by President Obama.
In March of this year he had apparently zero-ed in on an August 2015 order issued by Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and announced by the Obama Administration that for federal purposes changed the name of the tallest mountain in the state of Alaska to the name recognized as the mountain’s official name by the Alaska Board of Geographic Names and the name by which the mountain had been known to native Alaskans since time immemorial, Denali, meaning “the tall one.”
Trump was apparently having a meeting in the Oval Office with Alaska Senators Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski regarding Obama administration policies limiting development in Alaska. According to Sullivan, at the end of the meeting Trump said, “'I heard that the big mountain in Alaska also had -- also its name was changed by executive action. Do you want us to reverse that?” It was something that Trump had promised during the campaign, without knowing all the facts. All he knew is he wanted to undo something done by Obama.
The reaction by both senators was swift and unequivocal. "Lisa -- Sen. Murkowski -- and I jumped over the desk," Sullivan said. "We said no, no!" They had to explain to Trump that Denali is the original Athabaskan name for the mountain, that the mountain had always been colloquially known by that name in Alaska and that the state had been fighting for over 40 years to have the Federal government recognize its proper name over the objections from members of Congress from Ohio, the home state of the President the Federal government had recognized the mountain had been named after. Ohio members of Congress had prevented the United States Board on Geographic Names from naming the mountain Denali for more than 40 years, abusing a Board policy to not rename geographic features subject to pending legislation. The Obama-Jewell order bypassed the Board using another rule allowing the Interior Secretary to act if the Board fails to act on a naming request in a reasonable amount of time. Alaska first made a request to the Board to change the name in 1975. In 2015, Jewell remarked, “I think any of us would think that 40 years is an unreasonable amount of time.”
Murkowski and Sullivan, at least for now, appear to have prevented Trump from undoing the name restoration ordered by Obama and his Interior Secretary, dealing another blow and adding another failure to the impressive track record of incompetence and failure by the Trump Maladministration. Are you tired of winning yet, Mr. Trump?