Donald Trump is known for the “Art of the Deal,” his bestselling business book and memoir.
Facing almost certain pushback from Sen. Lisa Murkowski on his nominees for cabinet posts and key positions in national security, Trump may have been setting the stage for such an “artful deal” when he said on Sunday that he might change the name of America’s tallest peak to Mount McKinley, the name it was known as since a gold prospector gave it that name in 1896.
In Alaska, there’s no particular support for such a name change. Although the change from McKinley to Denali was made by President Barack Obama in an executive order in 2015, Alaskans are not pushing for a return of the previous name.
If Trump is trolling Murkowski, she bit hard.
“There is only one name worthy of North America’s tallest mountain: Denali – the Great One,” she wrote on X in response to a Reuters news article about Trump’s remarks during the America Fest in Phoenix, a convention of young conservatives.
Murkowski may be correct, but she also may have missed the real message. A president can change a name of a mountain at whim and for any reason.
If this is part of his famous dealmaking strategy, Alaskans would do well to revisit some of Trump’s tenets from the “Art of the Deal,” such as:
Maximize the options: “I never get too attached to one deal or one approach…I keep a lot of balls in the air, because most deals fall out, no matter how promising they seem at first.”
Use your leverage: “The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead.”
Fight back: “In most cases I’m very easy to get along with. I’m very good to people who are good to me. But when people treat me badly or unfairly or try to take advantage of me, my general attitude, all my life, has been to fight back very hard.”
Have fun: “Money was never a big motivation for me, except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game.”
Trump might just be having some fun, knowing that Murkowski would react.
Trump could also have fun by naming Denali something else, such as “Mount Steve Bannon,” after his ally who was jailed for contempt of Congress, who refused to cooperate with the Jan. 6 Committee run by Rep. Liz Cheney and Rep. Bennie Thompson.
He could name the mountain, “Mount Freedom,” or “Mount Patriot,” and set up a dare for anyone coming behind him.
The next Democrat president could, of course, switch it back to Denali.
Perhaps it will become the mountain in America that gets a new name every four to eight years — Mount Political Football, if you will.
Whatever the case, most Alaskans will probably still call it Denali.
With all on his plate, however, including wars in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, an illegal immigration crisis, a $36 trillion national debt, an Obamacare health care system that has destroyed the financial health of millions, and a military that needs to be rebuilt into a fighting force, it’s hard to see the renaming of Mount Denali as a top priority for Trump.
Alaskans and their congressional representatives and governor would oppose a name change, which makes it all the more likely that Trump is simply doing some Christmas season trolling of the person in the Senate who despises him the most: Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
