Podcast host Joe Rogan, who supported Donald Trump in the 2024 election but has criticized his policies, said the president’s fixation on renaming Lake Ontario was to distract from the war with Iran.
“Lake Ontario is no longer Lake Ontario. It’s Lake America,” Rogan said in his conversation on “The Joe Rogan Experience” with comedian Brian Simpson, which aired Tuesday.
When Simpson asked the purpose for changing the name, Rogan replied that the move was aimed at distracting the public “from the fact that we’re in a war we can’t win in Iran.”
“Doesn’t make any sense,” Rogan said. “Like who cares? It’s just Lake Ontario. It’s a good name. We’ve had that name forever.”
Simpson agreed, saying, “These politicians now, they love to solve a problem — like they love to like make up a problem for themselves to solve so you feel like they’re doing stuff.”
Trump renamed the smallest of the Great Lakes, which stretches from the United States into Canada, “Lake America” by executive order last week after Canada retaliated for U.S. tariffs with its own levies amid Trump’s tariff war with the country.
In a post on X, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney hit back, pointing out that the lake’s name, which originates from a Wendat word, is “more than 400 years old, predating both the Confederation of Canada and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America.”
Rogan’s show is ranked as one of the most popular and influential podcasts in the country. His suggestion that Trump’s order was aimed at taking attention away from a war that has no end in sight — and his disdain for the name change — is notable, given his previous support for the president. It also mirrors the public’s lack of support for Trump’s executive order. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found that most Americans oppose the name change, including a majority of Republicans.
The podcaster’s support for Trump during the 2024 election was widely considered to have boosted the then-Republican nominee’s standing with young male voters. But Rogan has since declared himself “politically homeless.” He has repeatedly criticized the administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown and denounced the Iran war, calling it a distraction from the Justice Department’s Jeffrey Epstein files debacle.
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