Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) took a swipe at President Trump on Tuesday over his suggestion to rename Lake Ontario to “Lake America,” a move tied to his escalating trade war with Canada. In a post on X, Dingell quipped that the U.S. should “just call it Lake Natalie” — a reference to White House executive assistant Natalie Harp, who has become a target of Democratic criticism.
Dingell shared a screenshot of Trump’s Truth Social post in which he said the U.S. was “giving serious consideration” to renaming one of the Great Lakes. Her response: “Let’s just call it Lake Natalie so we know you’ll start protecting our Great Lakes.”
The president’s threat mirrors his earlier executive order that renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Other U.S. locations share the Canadian province’s name, including Washington’s Ontario Road in the Reed-Cooke neighborhood and a city in San Bernardino County, California.
Democrats, starting with Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), have increasingly targeted Harp after she accompanied Trump aboard an Air Force jet when he left the NATO summit in Turkey last month. Trump boarded the older Air Force One instead of his Qatari-gifted jet, leaving some Cabinet members on the old plane while he and Harp flew on the third aircraft.
During a rally earlier this month, Ossoff mocked the president and Harp, saying Trump “wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie to their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.” Republican lawmakers pushed back, with Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) calling the discourse “super misogynistic.” Eric Trump defended Harp as a “genuinely good person” and dismissed the talk as “absolute trash.”
Ossoff responded to the backlash during an interview with MS NOW, saying it’s “been amazing to watch this White House melt down over this all week.” He also told Lawrence O’Donnell that Harp, as a government employee, is a legitimate target of political criticism.
Harp frequently travels with Trump on golf trips and to Mar-a-Lago, often carrying a printer to hand him documents and drafting his social media posts. She battled bone cancer in 2019 and wrote to Trump calling him her “guardian and protector in this life,” while he praised her fight, according to The New York Times. She credits the Right to Try Act, signed in 2018, for giving her access to experimental treatments.
Her brother, Preston Harp, told CNN that her devotion to Trump was an “unhealthy obsession.” The ongoing trade spat with Canada has already put border-state Republicans on the defensive, and Dingell’s jab adds another layer to the political fallout.
