{"id":2642,"date":"2026-02-08T18:08:41","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T18:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=2642"},"modified":"2026-02-08T18:08:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T18:08:41","slug":"trumps-quest-to-name-things-after-himself-takes-an-even-more-desperate-turn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=2642","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s quest to name things after himself takes an even more desperate turn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Donald Trump\u2019s\u00a0insatiable desire to name things after himself has been clear for a very long time. And as president, he\u2019s rapidly pushed the envelope in that regard, naming things after himself in ways it appears no previous president ever has.<\/p>\n<p>But even by his standards, this quest has taken a desperate \u2014 and seemingly politically unwise \u2014 turn.<\/p>\n<p>Trump last month sought to have Congress\u00a0rename Dulles International Airport near DC and New York City\u2019s Penn Station\u00a0after himself.<\/p>\n<p>CNN\u2019s Manu Raju and Adam Cancryn report that Trump pitched the renamings to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as a condition for releasing billions of dollars in frozen funds for a major New York infrastructure project. Schumer, a New York Democrat, turned it down. The news was\u00a0first reported by Punchbowl.<\/p>\n<p>(The president had a different spin on it Friday, claiming that Schumer had been the one to suggest renaming Penn Station after him \u2013 which Schumer quickly dismissed as an \u201cabsolute lie.\u201d)<\/p>\n<p>In a way, this might sound par-for-course. Trump has already applied his name (legally or otherwise) to a\u00a0bevy of things\u00a0\u2014 from the Kennedy Center, to the US Institute of Peace, to a class of battleships, to savings accounts for children. He even launched a \u201cTrumpRx\u201d prescription drug platform on Thursday, the very same day we learned about his designs on slapping his name on major transportation hubs in DC and New York.<\/p>\n<p>While things are named after presidents, experts have said there is simply\u00a0no precedent\u00a0for naming things after a\u00a0<em>sitting<\/em>\u00a0president like this. The New York Times recently\u00a0dug into the data, backing up that other presidents have almost always had to wait until after leaving office.<\/p>\n<h3>Why this is different<\/h3>\n<p>But even by the standards Trump has set for himself, his bid to rename this train station and airport are on another level.<\/p>\n<p>The key difference here is that the president has sought to name these things after himself not by executive action, but through leverage \u2014 by effectively trading it as a political favor.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s good reason he appears to be going down that road. His previous bids to slap his name on buildings, like the Kennedy Center, are\u00a0quite possibly illegal, and they could just as easily be reversed \u2014 especially once he leaves office. It would be altogether shocking if the next Democratic president\u00a0<em>didn\u2019t<\/em>\u00a0remove Trump\u2019s name from the Kennedy Center.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"caas-figure\">\n<div class=\"caas-figure-with-pb\">\n<div>\n<div class=\"caas-img-container caas-img-lightbox\" data-lightbox-src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/5K7vcNpj4ZHZH_9Cdeuw7Q--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTE5MjA7aD0xMDgwO2NmPXdlYnA-\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/cnn_articles_875\/225e97dbfdaa1c3616a926050cb25dde\"><span class=\"caas-img-wrapper\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"caas-img caas-lazy has-preview caas-loaded\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/VrrBTTgug1aDWm8hsrS6Ow--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTU0MDtjZj13ZWJw\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/cnn_articles_875\/225e97dbfdaa1c3616a926050cb25dde\" alt=\"A person and a dog walk in front of the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, on January 10. - Mandel Ngan\/AFP\/Getty Images\" data-caas-lazy-loading-init=\"1\" \/><button class=\"link rapid-noclick-resp caas-lightbox\" aria-label=\"View larger image\" data-ylk=\"sec:image-lightbox;slk:lightbox-open;elm:expand;itc:1\" data-rapid_p=\"18\"><\/button><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"caption-wrapper caption-aligned-with-image\">\n<div class=\"caption-wrapper caption-aligned-with-image\"><\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"caption-collapse\" data-id=\"m-1\">A person and a dog walk in front of the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, on January 10. &#8211; Mandel Ngan\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In order for the Trump brand to have lasting power on government entities, he really needs Congress to codify the changes. But Congress is not good at acting \u2014 especially when there\u2019s not much in it for them.<\/p>\n<p>Trump is not trying to leverage the New York infrastructure project for some conservative policy win \u2014 something that matters to the Republican base or GOP members of Congress ahead of the 2026 midterms. He\u2019s trying to leverage it for his own personal tribute and glorification.<\/p>\n<p>The president could seemingly use this as leverage for any number of other purposes, but he\u2019s sought to use it for himself.<\/p>\n<p>He has been transactional about lots of things, especially in his second term. He\u2019s even used his leverage recently to get a Venezuelan opposition leader to\u00a0gift him her recently awarded Nobel Peace Prize. As I wrote back then, that raised the prospect that Trump was in effect trading his personal glorification\u00a0for major foreign policy decisions.<\/p>\n<p>But usually his efforts to leverage his authority for personal glorification are a little more subtle like that \u2014 with the quid pro quo a little less direct. His proposition to Schumer practically slaps you across the face in its degree of blatant self-dealing.<\/p>\n<p>Republicans should probably start asking themselves how much they\u2019re willing to entertain this level of self service.<\/p>\n<h3>And it\u2019s a political loser, too<\/h3>\n<p>But even beyond the \u201cyuck\u201d factor, there\u2019s good reason to believe this is a rather poorly conceived move. Indeed, Trump\u2019s efforts to glorify himself appear to be a major and growing problem for him right now.<\/p>\n<p>We don\u2019t have much high-quality polling on his bids to name things after himself specifically.<\/p>\n<p>But polling early last year showed\u00a0around two-thirds\u00a0of Americans\u00a0opposed his effort to unilaterally rename the Gulf of Mexico as the \u201cGulf of America.\u201d That suggests Americans overwhelmingly don\u2019t think he should just be able to do things like this by himself.<\/p>\n<p>And\u00a0a CNN poll\u00a0last month asked about Trump \u201cmaking changes to cultural institutions such as the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian.\u201d Fully 62% of Americans said he had \u201cgone too far\u201d on this count.<\/p>\n<p>That question wasn\u2019t specifically about\u00a0<em>renaming<\/em>\u00a0the Kennedy Center, though it\u2019s logical to assume many had heard the board had voted to add Trump\u2019s name in December. About 7 in 10 independents and even 3 in 10 Republicans said the president was going too far with those cultural changes.<\/p>\n<p>But that might not be the worst and most relevant finding from that CNN poll.<\/p>\n<p>The survey also found Trump hitting a record low on the percentage of Americans who said he \u201ccares about people like you.\u201d Just 33% said that applied to Trump. A whopping 77% of independents disagreed.<\/p>\n<p>And Americans said 63%-37% that they disagreed with the idea that Trump \u201cputs the good of the country above his personal gain.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To put a fine point on that: Nearly two-thirds of Americans said Trump is mostly out for himself.<\/p>\n<p>That may be fueled, in part, by perceptions Trump is enriching himself financially in office. (The White House has repeatedly maintained it\u2019s committed to ethics and transparency.) But potential conflicts of interest are a lot more difficult to explain than\u00a0<em>PLASTERS HIS OWN NAME ACROSS A BUILDING<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>And Trump\u2019s quest to name things after himself seems especially ill-timed given the state of the economy. We\u2019re currently in the midst of what the vast majority of Americans regard as bad economic times, and about three-quarters of Americans don\u2019t think he\u2019s done enough to lower prices.<\/p>\n<p>The usual course for a president in such times would be to focus like a laser on righting the ship \u2014 and making people view him as worthy of bestowing honors upon him. And then, at some later date, Congress does just that.<\/p>\n<p>But Trump would apparently rather slap his name on whatever he can, however he can \u2014 and hope it somehow sticks.<\/p>\n<p><em>This story has been updated with additional details.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at\u00a0CNN.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Donald Trump\u2019s\u00a0insatiable desire to name things after himself has been clear for a very long time. And as<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2643,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","category-us"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2642"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2644,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2642\/revisions\/2644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}