Trump's "Lake America" Flop, SCOTUS Ballroom Ruling, Iran War Flares Up: A Closer Look Out of Office

0:02Hey everybody, Seth Meyers here. Please join us for Closer Look Out of Office. It's a weekly podcast series where Sal Gentile, who writes A Closer Look, and I chat about the stories we would have covered if we had shows. It's going to be a lot of fun or not. Let's all find out together. What's up, Sal? Hey, how's it going? I'm doing well. It is, this is episode four of Closer Look, Proof of Life. slash out of office, I guess. Because some people did finally vote for out of office in the last episode. It was nice to hear a couple people speak up. I think we're just going to keep doing this thing where we call it both.

0:40Yeah, because we're learning the value in not staking out one position. Exactly. You know what? After 10 years, we finally learned something from Donald Trump, which is we take every position on the issue at any point. On that note, Sal, because we've had our laughs about the fact that Donald Trump has maybe gone back and forth over the Strait of Hormuz and the current status of it. Yes. Again, I'm a man who believes the commander in chief. Yes. Thought everything was rock and rolling right before we got on. And again, we're recording this on Tuesday, September 1st. And I was under the impression that we control, maybe even own the Strait of Hormones.

1:26They're getting the name change ready. It's in the, the paperwork is ready. Well, I will say that is maybe how we knew this was not true. Because it had not, because the name change hadn't happened, we should have known that this was maybe not the Strait of America. I didn't, I didn't, exactly. That was my question is why we are six months in. The war is supposedly is apparently in a stalemate at this point. Why hasn't he just resorted to changing the name? Why hasn't that happened yet? Yeah. He hasn't done it. And I'm just reading that U.S. military conducting fresh strikes in the Strait of Hormuz.

1:58And I got to be honest, if that was our strait, I don't think we'd be doing new strikes. No, I don't. I don't think I don't think it was the Strait of America. We'd be we'd be doing new strikes on it. No. My favorite, my least favorite thing about the name change of Lake Ontario. Yeah. Can I tell you my least favorite thing? Is when he took out the map. He took out the map to change it in Shelby. Mm-hmm. And he crossed out the lake to write lake above it. So this is Lake Ontario in Canada and in the United States. But we're going to make a little change. We're going to call it something different than Lake Ontario.

2:38We're going to call it Lake America. And all it takes is a good pen and some intelligence. So Lake Ontario, that's gone. Lake America.

2:58So now we have a lake. And now we have a gulf. because we have the Gulf of America and now we have Lake America without the of. Thank you very much, everybody. Enjoy Lake America. Like, why not just cross out Ontario and write America? But he crossed out both. Like, the lake's there. The lake didn't change. There's no, you don't need to, you don't need to, it's not going to be in Sharpie on all the maps. I think he thinks that even on Google Maps, when you go on Google Maps, you're going to see a big old, like, written in Sharpie. well he would prefer that because that would be that's his zoro right yes i who i was there is just that's right sharpie that's his question mark he's a sharpie zoro yes yes he's a sharpie zoro he's a zarpie i think that's what you call it a zarpie exactly he uh this is some real this is some real dork yeah i mean it's just they're just such dorks and yeah you know and again it It is a real reminder that like they can't actually accomplish anything.

4:03Yes. No, they can't. And then, you know, obviously, you know, they take to social media. They have an army of people that are good at sort of flexing over this news that it's now, you know, Google Maps is calling it, you know, Lake America. They're not even good at it, though, because you can't flex. But they are flexing, but nobody cares. Nobody cares, right? It's like a guy on the beach in Santa Monica. Like, you see those guys all the time. You walk past them on Muscle Beach. But it's like a scrawny guy who's flexing and wrote with Sharpie on his arm, big muscle. Yeah. Like, everybody can see it for what it is.

4:42Like, this was not, this is not, you know. And the interesting thing is, right, so I guess my question to you is, which one do you prefer, Sal? Right? We have an actual, you know, it does seem like now maybe violating international law, America is trying to take Venezuelan oil. Yes. America has stolen through an act of war and extortion, Venezuela's oil, which traditionally, by the way, has always gone great. There's never been a problem with us invading and colonizing and overthrowing the government of a South American country, extracting their natural resources and taking it for ourselves. I'm not clear.

5:21I prefer sharpying up a map to that. If we had to choose, for sure. If he could just write with a sharpie on Venezuela, America oil, like instead of actually invading and kidnapping their leaders in violation of U.S. and international law and then just taking the oil. I mean, we we called it and we're going to obviously get back to Canada. But real quick, we called the ballroom ballroom. The Supreme Court basically said there's no standing. right? This is the ruling. Yeah. The Historical Preservation Society, I hope I'm getting that right, who was basically suing to try to stop this. National Trust for Historic Preservation, I think it is.

5:59Yeah. They tried to sue to stop this, and five Supreme Court just said, like, the reality is, like, you're not suffering any injury here. Yeah. So you don't have the standing to bring this. But ultimately, so you could do whatever you want. Like, once again, the Supreme Court has said, like, you can just do whatever you want. Yeah. The question I have is, because I read the ruling, so let's get into it, because we were talking about it. Immediately, we were just like, the Supreme Court's going to be like, just let him do it. By the way, love that Roberts basically tried to have it both ways, where he wrote the stay at first, the administrative stay, that was like, let them keep building the ball.

6:39Because he's so far along. Just let him do it. He's so close. He's 65 % dark. There's rebar in the ground. He's going to be half done. He's going to be mad all the time. He loves the granite. He loves talking about the granite and the grass. And the thing is, you've got to do it now because it's only a million plus. This is the highest quality stone you can get. And especially for something like this, it's got it's rated a million year plus. So every day you wait, it's closer to being over. The grass is only guaranteed for a million years plus. A million years plus. Time is a wasting. So Roberts wrote the administrative stay that stayed the lower court ruling.

7:18It was like, let them keep building the ballroom. In spite of the fact, as we discussed last time, that the ruling was this bizarre situation where all of these experts and constitutional jurisprudence have to write stuff that's just like, it's not your house. You're not a permanent owner of the house. But they had to find legalese. In some cases, they actually didn't. They just said you're a tenant, which seems incredibly obvious. But, of course, we were like the Supreme Court will find a way. And they did. Five to four, they ruled that the National Trust for Historic Preservation didn't have standing.

7:53There was no injury to them, which is – I mean, if anybody – who do you need to be the National Trust for not building ballrooms on the east wing? They must just be like this is the only thing. This is what we care about. We built a thing to care about this. Yes. This is the one thing we do. yeah and again this idea of it's just the terrible precedent which is just start something yeah just start it yeah just do it without asking anybody and then eventually ever you want yes and they do this thing where they like toss around like the chief justice of the supreme court wrote the stay and then roughly a week later when the actual ruling came out he just he sides with the three Democrats, of course, strategically in a dissent and just tosses out that it's, quote, likely unlawful.

8:46So he's like, it's probably this is probably bad. This is probably illegal. Let me tell you what I think is bad is when the chief justice says something's likely unlawful and it's just going full speed ahead. Yeah. Also, waiting is likely. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

9:06But the other thing I wanted to read from the Supreme Court ruling, because this is crazy to me, this is the first sentence of the ruling. Speaking to this, basically, there's like this tacit admission from the Supreme Court chief justice and even from the majority opinion that this is likely illegal. but we're going to let him do it anyway. In October 2025, the federal government started a project to replace the East Wing of the White House. The first phase involved the demolition of the existing East Wing, something that the government completed in December of 2025. The federal government did not decide to do that.

9:49That is the first sentence of the Supreme Court's majority ruling. And that is not the case. The federal government, I can't believe I have to say this to five Supreme Court justices, but the federal government is composed of three co-equal branches of government. The legislative branch did not have any participation in this decision whatsoever. The judicial branch has now multiple times ruled that this was illegal. The only person who decided it was Donald Trump, and he alone does not constitute the federal government. Yeah. I'm starting to think these guys might not be on the up and up, Sal.

10:27No word. I just wanted to rant about that for a second. But that gets us to – we've talked about how – and I think this is kind of – this is a through line for everything we're going to talk about, which is like we talked about this in the last episode. A thing we do often in a closer look is we reset the baseline of what this presidency was supposed to be about. Right. What everybody was engaged in conversation about when we were deciding who to vote for for president of the United States. And it had nothing to do with anything that is happening right now. It was arguably the most shamelessly fraudulent presidential campaign in history.

11:05Non-stop talking about lowering prices and ending foreign wars. But the point is the second Donald Trump got into power, he abandoned everything that he pretended to care about because it was obviously just a brazen lie. He was just repeating words that he was told to repeat. And he started caring about the things he actually cares about. We played this clip last week on the episode of Maggie Haberman saying 70 % of his brain goes to renovations. And this is now his own commerce secretary. I want to play this clip because it's like this incredible confession from somebody who works closely with Donald Trump as a member of his cabinet, admitting that there is really only one thing the president actually likes about the job and wants to do, which is the renovations.

11:51But can I just say, and before you listen to this, the craziest thing about this confession is how enthusiastically it's delivered. Yes. As if it is a piece of good news, as if it is like, hopefully now that you hear me explain this, you will be as excited about his sickness as I am. Yes. It's like somebody selling us on a timeshare, but the timeshare is just part time in somebody's psychosis. Like, do you want to also be insane for a little while? It's like you can for three weeks in August, you can be insane for a little while, too, just like him. So let's play that clip. It's the Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

12:31Now, he is in this clip. He's not talking specifically about the ballroom. He's talking about the Kennedy Center, but it's all part of the same thing, which is he's talking about why. By the way, side note, in the same press conference, Lutnick said basically that they would have to demolish the Kennedy Center if they're not allowed to put Trump's name on it. But he's explaining why the Commerce Secretary is showing up and even care why he even cares about this at all, why the federal government is putting why the specifically why the executive branch is putting any time at all into this. And he's explaining it because this is all that the president cares about.

13:06There are two things that he does for enjoyment. He plays golf on the weekend and he builds. He loves to build. So this, like, why are we talking about this? This is what he enjoys. So late at night, 11 o 'clock at night, he calls me and wants to talk about things he's building because it's fun for him. This is his enjoyment. And the only thing he does during the week that does not work, because everybody works him. Like, if you sat with him, would you have a nice chat with him? No, you'd ask him about Iran. Then you'd ask him about this. Then you'd ask him about that. Everybody does that. And the one thing he likes to do during the week is construction.

13:42So I am helping him so he can enjoy constructing the Kennedy Center. Again, that should be delivered like a sobbing woman trying to explain that she's standing up for her child. The only thing he loves is building. He calls me at 11 o 'clock at night talking about buildings. So that's why I'm trying to help him build. I'm trying to help my boy build. Like just like terminally ill make a wish. Yes, I was just about to say, he's talking about him like a make a wish kid. Like, come on. Just let him do his passion project. Stop saying the one thing when you also opened with golf. He's the president.

14:27I'm sorry that everybody talks to him about Iran. A war he started. He also gets to have Two hobbies? I don't have two hobbies. Yes. What adult over the age of 25 has two hobbies? A second hobby. Yes. Golf plus. I'm so unbelievable. Yes, that's another thing about that clip that's insane. He's like complaining. He's like, come on, guys. You know how it is. The president, you're going to ask him questions about Iran. Like, he got to give. Did it. He's the one who did it. Iran. Also, I'm so sorry you don't have time for your - Look, he started Iran, and he's got to answer all your questions about Iran.

15:12And you're telling me he can't have two hobbies? By the way, also, a second building, not even talking about the ballroom. So he's like a guy with like 50 Lego sets going at once. Yeah. An adult man. Yes. Just golfing in Legos. But it is such an amazing confession to say that this is all he likes. And you're pestering him with questions about his job. I'm so sorry you ran for president. You don't get to have a, you shouldn't even get to have one hobby. But I guess we would allow you to have. Based on video I saw, Obama played basketball the one time. Yeah. Right? We all saw the video the one time Barack Obama played basketball.

15:53Yeah, yeah. What hobbies? Yes. The other hobby was briefly smoking, basically. Like, he was caught smoking briefly. He smoked once and played basketball once. Yeah, yeah. And he caught a fly. Yes. And that was it. Yes. That's what he did for fun. Yes. But just this idea, and again, like, you know, the hypocrisy of no, right? Like, we could play the clip of Dr. Oz. Dr. Oz basically just said, you know, if we can just get Americans feeling better and they all, everybody works another year. Yes. That would be a boon for the economy. If we could just get the average American to feel so healthy, so with it, so vibrant, that they want to work just one extra year, that's worth$1 trillion to our GDP every year.

16:43That's their solution to fixing their problems is like, you guys all work more. Meanwhile, the president has to have two hobbies. Yes. Oh, my God. It's such a great point. They're nonstop. One of the main things that the capitalist class, and I'm so sorry to go off on one of my rants about the capitalist class, but I'm going to do it. And again, just I would love to say to the capitalist class, I'm happy to be a member and we're just having a great time and everything's going great. Go ahead, Scott. But one of the main complaints of the capitalist class and one of their main projects is to constantly wrench every little ounce of productivity out of every wage earner that they possibly can.

17:18There was literally a clip the other day of some billionaire talking about how, oh, you want to work from home? Well, we're going to shove a camera up your ass. And Scott, but the president just said today some version of like, people are lazy. These are underachievers who are jealous of those who want to go and work every day. These are people who also just feel like their life should be half or 75 % leisure activities. Yes, yeah, absolutely, yeah. So it's infuriating. And by the way, not only are they like wrenching every little ounce of productivity out of wage earners whose wages are not even keeping up with the inflation that they're causing.

17:59But meanwhile, we're all supposed to have like sympathy and empathy for the little builder. We're supposed to let him just do his granite driveway. The billionaire who made$2 billion while he was president last year. Please just let him play golf and build his ballroom. Building nothing. Just like issuing coins. Issuing non-fungible coins. Yes. He didn't even. Exactly. He had two hobbies. He didn't even use his own two hands to make that$2 billion. He just sat around and let somebody sell a fake coin with his face on it. God damn it. Sorry. That's what this episode is now. We got a little angry.

18:39But for fun now, I want to play this. Can we play this one other clip? Since we're talking about he's obsessed with building. By the way, there's this other thing he's building. We've played the clips of the ballroom, the Kennedy Center. He's talking about the grass and the driveway and the helipad. There's this other thing he's building, which is this arc, this mysterious arc that he's basically – Is it an arc or an arch? Would you call it an arch or an arc? I actually – what is – I would call it an arch, but I don't know. I guess you're right. I guess I was – You were being French about it. I was being French about it, yes.

19:13Yeah. So I was being French about it. That's what I was doing. Thank you. And preemptively before anybody jumps in the comments – None of the people of Sal Gentile gets a little Francophile.

19:25Before anybody jumps in the comments, you heard what Seth said. I was being French about it. I was not wrong. I was being French. But I like that as just a thing you say about somebody sometimes. Like, oh, the guy's being a little French about that. Just somebody being a little rude and snooty. Just being a little bit French. Apologies for my friends. He's being a little French about it. A little French today. He didn't have his cafe. But so he's building this arch and he's so obsessed with it that in the middle of meetings about other things, he'll call world leaders to ask them questions. And I just love the questions that he has specifically about these other things.

20:06So this is a clip of New York Times reporter Maggie Hamerman describing one of these conversations. She had already said right before this clip that he spends about 70 percent of his time and brain energy on renovations. and in the middle of this is her recalling a story about how he called the president of France to ask him questions about the Arc de Triomphe and can I just give a shout out to Maggie Herberman's tone while telling this story yes the dryness is just A plus yes he calls Macron in the middle of another meeting and starts asking him about the Arc de Triomphe in France and you know what's it like and how many people, you know, does it have a visitor's desk?

20:46Do people jump off of it? I mean, this was the conversation that he was interested in. I mean, he's deeply unwell. He's two people. One of his big questions was two people jump off the arc, the trail. But also that the first question was, do they have a visitor's desk? Like what? The amount of zigzag. Yes. In those. Like, by the way, the arch itself doesn't take that hard a U-turn. The physical structure of the arch from one end to the other does not take as hard a turn as is there a visitor's desk and do people jump off? By the way, this is in the middle of another meeting. So presumably this is a meeting about something completely unrelated.

21:29Somebody probably asked him a question about Iran. He was like, oh, I got to take a load off. Hold on. I got to do something fun. I'm just a little worried we haven't put money aside for visitor's desk. What a life, too, because I think when you're Macron or really any world leader. Yeah. You take the call, right? You have to take the call. Yeah, you have to from the president of the United States. Yeah, of course. Especially because you might be hopeful that it's news about, say, Iran. Yes. Or it's news about tariffs. Or it's news about Ukraine. You can't just let it go to voicemail, right? Yes.

22:03And so you take the call. You probably stop a meeting you're having. Yeah. Yeah. Or, you know, it's or it's interrupting one of your two hobbies that you have a right to as a world leader. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe he's in the middle of a Mahjong game and he's like, oh, hold on a minute. And so Macron takes the call and then he's got to I mean, he's got to answer those questions. Yes. Yeah. He's in the middle of a meeting and he gets a call from the president. United States and he's desperately hoping it's good news. The straight we've reached an agreement. The strait is open. The global economy will no longer be cratered.

22:38And instead it's the president of the United States saying, you've got this big arch. Do people – do people jump? Two-part question. Is there a visitor's desk? And then once people check into the desk, do they throw themselves to the desk? But so the through line to all of this and the reason why – there's many reasons why it matters. First of all is because the usurpation of powers we've talked about. like the idea that the president of the United States just gets to remake Washington, D.C. We've also talked about the fact that he's doing this. It's an implicit confession that like he's so wildly unpopular and such a wild aberration from norms.

23:18And he's aware of that on some level. And so it's like an implicit confession that he's trying to build things that we that we can't expunge because we're going to be desperate to expunge any evidence of this person having ever been president. the United States when he leaves office. And he kind of knows that. So that's why he's trying to put like actual rebar in the ground. So we have to remember, oh, Donald Trump built that ballroom. But he's doing all that. And he's outsourcing the rest of governing to this cabal of like crackpots and crazy people who he has no interest in what they're doing or why they're doing it.

23:52Well, to that point, the army secretary, Dan Driscoll, just resigned. And this is someone who is not some crazy holdover leftist. This is a confidant of J.D. Vance. He has butted heads with Pete Hegseth, it does seem. But according to The Atlantic, on his way out, Dan Driscoll basically shared his concerns with Donald Trump about how many people have been leaving the military via getting fired, basically. And of course, in the story, Donald Trump is surprised to hear this. Yeah, Howard Buckner is like, And if you were there, you would be telling him, oh, there's nobody left in the military. So nobody wants to work for the military anymore.

24:34And all he wants to do is he wants to plant. He loves to build. So stop asking him questions about the military. Do you think his thing, maybe I'm being too hard on him. Maybe his thing was like, should the visitor's desk ask? That's right. There's a list of questions they ask. First time in France.

24:52First time in France. What brought you here? How did you hear about us? Friends? I also, you know, we're talking about how he wants to build stuff. It was reported that he also cut down on these trees, which is even weirdly worse than building a new thing. Yeah. Which is like cutting down trees, which again, there's no way to stop him because the trees are the only ones withstanding. Once you cut down the trees. Yeah, the trees historically cannot bring cases to the Supreme Court. So there's no, and there's no tree people. Well, I mean, theoretically, actually. Does the law act have standing? But also, as we pointed out on this podcast, grass is alive.

25:34You know, grass has a life like humans have a life. Grass is people. Grass is people. Oh, you're right. If grass is people, trees is people. We might have finally, we might have finally, we might have finally gotten Trump. We might have, he might have finally, if he's been hoisted by his. Just like, it would be great to hear one of those sometimes when they just play the oral arguments on the news, on cable news, and you just, because again, you don't, there's no camp. You just hear the audio. Well, to quote the president, trees, much like grass, is people. Trees is people. Now, the Supreme Court has held in previous rulings that in order to have standing, you must cause injury to this specific party.

26:14And as you well know, tearing out the trees causes injury to the grass, which, of course, as you know, is people. Is people. But so he might have, he might have hoisted by his own petard. We might have finally gotten him. He confessed that grass is people, and now he's tearing out the trees and mowing down the grass. And they're the only ones that have standing to come back. And maybe, maybe the only ones that can stop this are the grass. Yeah. A blade of grass has to sue. Grass, grass, grass v. Trump. Grass v. Trump.

26:49This gets us to the trade war with Canada. Because this is another case where I just feel crazy. And this is why we constantly do this in A Closer Look. Because he did not talk about this at all during the campaign. He never said at any point, like, I'm going to start a trade war with Canada that's going to increase prices by 50 % for consumers. And on top of that, I don't think he has really any knowledge of the specifics and clearly has no solutions other than what we're about to talk about, which is renaming the lake. We got to it a little bit before, but we're going to get into it now. This is the same thing.

27:27Trump talks during the campaign. He's going to lower prices and make everything more affordable, and he's going to stop foreign wars. The second he takes office, he drops all of that, starts talking about building the ballroom and starting a trade war with Canada. And now it's become – that's one of his new obsessions, how much he hates Canada. And that has been an obsession of his since the moment he took office, which is the switch to me is crazy. Yeah, and again, there are other things, right? Like, for example, you could say, you know, he did over the years say he established he thought NATO countries should pay their fair share, right?

28:05Yeah. There are examples of things he did say, whether you agree with him or not, that that was part of his platform. This idea that he or anyone else thought that one of the issues facing us was Canada eating our lunch. Yes, that our biggest economic nemesis was Canada. Yes. The same way that, like, suddenly it's become an urgent matter of national security that we have sovereignty over Greenland. Like, the way that it suddenly became a thing out of nowhere. And so I just wanted to play this clip because four days into Donald Trump's administration, four days into power, he's talking about how much he hates Canada.

28:49Like how mad he is at Canada. Like four days into office. Like, this is – when you're watching this clip, you have to put yourself back in time to two months ago, he was talking about how it was going to be cheaper to buy bacon, lettuce, and tomato at the grocery store. That's what he was talking about routinely. That's what everybody was talking about at the campaign trail, that your groceries were going to be cheaper. You were going to get back to$2 a gallon of gas. four days into office and he is obsessively ranting about how much he hates Canada. We lose$200 billion a year with Canada. That's because we allow them to make cars.

29:32We allow them to take lumber. We don't need their cars. We don't need their lumber. We don't need their food products. And I said to, I call him Governor Trudeau, but he's Prime Minister Trudeau when he was Prime Minister. I said, do you think it's fair that we're paying$200 billion to keep Canada going? And what would happen? I said, I asked him, what would happen if we didn't do that, if we didn't subsidize Canada? He said, we'd be a failed nation. And I said, then you should be a state. Because why are we paying all of that money to Canada when, you know, we could use it ourselves. Also, they've been very nasty to us on trade.

30:09Historically, Canada has been very, very bad to us very unfair to us on trade so we'll see how it all works out i would love to see canada be the 51st state it's been very mean to us very nice yeah very nasty four days into his presidency he's saying that canada has been very nasty to us it's just astounding to me that the the bait and switch is so brazen the degree to which four days in these insane obsessions that we heard. Do you think it is that he just thought this was too easily accomplished? Because ultimately what we've found is the country's Iran that he can't actually bully, he is so frustrated by.

30:52And ultimately, it does seem like one of the reasons he's so deeply frustrated at this moment with Canada is it seems like Mark Carney is also standing up to him. And again, And we've talked, you know, the last episode about is this tipping point happening where people are just like, it can't be worse. Yeah. Standing up to you can't be worse than these like constant micro capitulations. Yes. That don't satisfy you. Yes. Also, they're discovering the political incentives are changing. As we mentioned last week, like his Trump's base has eroded so significantly and his polling is like his polling is atrocious.

31:35He's at record low approval ratings, which, by the way, he always has been with the exception of the very beginning of this term. But it did seem like, you know, there was this moment where I'm sure a lot of like world leaders and actors across various institutions were all like, oh, my God, somehow Trump wormed his way back into power. He won the election. But the political incentives have so rapidly and quickly changed because his polling has deteriorated so disastrously. And at the same time, other world leaders are finding out that there is a political upside to them standing up to Donald Trump.

32:10In fact, this is a poll that I found so funny. YouGov did a poll. They did. They pulled two separate things. They pulled. How do you feel about the renaming of Lake Ontario is like America? And obviously everybody hates it and thinks it's dumb. The strong opposition, just strong opposition, never mind like mildly opposed is 51 percent. So a majority of the people who responded in this poll said they strongly oppose. And then that gets even higher when you consider when you include somewhat oppose. But in this, you have also polled Americans how they feel about our tariffs, which they hate. They hate Trump's tariffs on other countries.

32:46But how they feel about Canada's retaliatory tariffs toward us. And it's actually a net positive territory. That's how bad Trump's polling is, that people, more people approve than disapprove. In the United States, more Americans approve than disapprove of Canada retaliating against us with dollar for dollar tariffs. Well, you would hope. I mean, don't you think part of that comes from somebody has to stop him, right? It's not going to come from inside the House. So, you know what I mean? Like we just, you know, as we discussed this episode, right? The Supreme Court's not our salvation. Yes. Ultimately, nobody within the Republican Party is our salvation.

33:29Yes. And, you know, dependent on the midterms, the question will be, you know, is there going to be any Democratic majority that will throw the brakes on him? So the idea that maybe, you know, if somebody, you know, tit for tats and with tariffs, he will realize tariffs are a bad idea. Yeah, totally. It's just incredible to me that that's how wildly unpopular the president and everything he's doing, but in particular this trade war is, that a retaliatory action by another country against us is more popular than what the president is doing. People are literally like, yeah, like they're being asked like, do you want to – do you think Canada should come to your house and kick you in the balls?

34:10And they're just like, yeah, probably. We deserve it. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you saw Trey Gowdy, former Congressman Trey Gowdy, his hesitation about the renaming. Yeah, yeah. Now I will say, we should play the clip. I do think he's saying it half in jest, so I don't, you know, I want to give him credit. Do you? Was that your read on it? I didn't, my read. Look, you know, Jesse Waters laughs, so I wanted, it wasn't like this was said and everybody was like, excellent point, Trey. I hadn't thought of that. So, you know. Well, we can play the clip. If you want to just throw, you want to just play the clip?

34:42Play the clip. Here's what troubles me. So it took me 12 years to remember that acronym to learn the Great Lakes. It's HOMES, right? Oh. All right. The O changes to A. That's close to Hamas. That's what bothers me about changing the name from Ontario to America is how close that acronym is to Hamas. It's going to confuse a lot of kids. That's why I haven't made up my mind on it yet. So he's worried that if you change the O in the HOMES acronym to A, now it's closed to Hamas, even though it's clearly Hames. It's, yeah. It's Hames. Yeah, it's Hames. I like that it's Hamas when Trump also changes Lake Erie.

35:30Yes. So that's ultimately, Trey Gowdy is one step ahead of us. Yes, yeah. Yeah. Now the question is, we have to get one step ahead and imagine why would Trump rename Lake Erie? What would have to be happening for him to rename Lake Erie as another Lake America? So we have a second Lake America. He's decided to rename Lake Erie because it's like - It's too spooky? I was like, it's too spooky. It's too spooky. It's too spooky. We don't want ghouls and ghosts in our lakes. We're getting the ghouls out of our lakes, everybody. It's an eerie lake. So that was Lake Erie. And also, Trey Gowdy, I'm always, you know, speaking of eerie, I'm always a little scared to see him because he's very clearly Judge Doom from Roger Rabbit, who framed Roger Rabbit.

36:25It is, yeah. You got that head. He's definitely, especially because of the success, I've been thinking about this because of Coyote vs. Acme, like animation and live film. It's true. Fantastic film. He is an animated character in a live action setting.

36:44Yeah, so. Let's play, should we play Trump talking about the name change? We showed the clip earlier as you were talking about it of Trump doing the renaming with the Sharpie. But this is exciting because this isn't just a whim, guys. Like, this isn't just something that he decided on a moment's notice because he was angry that he couldn't get his way, that he couldn't bully one of our closest neighbors and allies. This is actually something that he's put a lot of thought into, as he mentioned in this clip. The lake change, the lake of America, was something I've been thinking about for a long time, actually.

37:20As you know, we took something called the Gulf of Mexico, we changed it, and now it's very routinely the Gulf of America. So if you think about it, we have a gulf and we have a lake. Now all we need is an ocean. So maybe we'll have to change the name of the Atlantic and or the Pacific. Maybe we'll change them both. So if you think about it, we have a lake and a gulf, as if you have to think about it. If you think about it. You know, if you put... All right, everybody, this is a real thinker. We're going to get the chalkboard out here. I also like that nothing is gained, right? Like nobody's like, that's so great.

38:03I mean, we used to have to, you know, every time we'd go swimming in Lake Ontario, we had to bring our passport. There's no change. Yes. Nothing changed. The idea of changing the name. No improvement to your life whatsoever. But because he mentioned the Gulf of Mexico, I thought this was really actually incredible. Like USA Today did real reporting. They just because, you know, these things come, these like insane whims that we all have to live through on a daily basis where the president of the United States wakes up and tweets something deranged or some AI slop or some order about, you know, he's changing the name of something or building a new thing or whatever.

38:36And we all have to we have to spend, expend brain energy on that. And then just as fast as it comes, it goes and everybody forgets about it. But USA Today, a year later, after he did the Gulf of Mexico thing, which, again, nobody asked for and was wildly unpopular in polls, they actually went down there and did real reporting and asked people, so do you call it the Gulf of America now? And I love this particular character. There was a shrimp boat captain. They talked to a shrimp boat captain. First of all, most people just call it the Gulf. When you live there, they just call it the Gulf. Like, nobody cares about your dumb.

39:11And some people who have professional reasons to name, like real estate agents, were like, no, we have to keep calling it what we've always called it so people know where they're buying property. But I love this shrimp boat captain. More important to him, he said, was quickly unloading 318 hundred pound boxes of frozen shrimp so he could get back onto the water while the fishing remained good. I don't really give a what they call it, he said. it'll always be the Gulf of Mexico to me. And so even, I mean, Trump's even losing like shrimp boat captains who are like, even those guys are like, shut the f*** up.

39:51Yeah. Nobody is going to, nobody's going to call it Lake America with the exception of Google, of course. Our largest tech monopolies are going to change the name. By the way, I loved also, f***ing great move by, did you see MapQuest? Yeah. MapQuest. MapQuest is like, f*** that. I mean, by the way, when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose right yeah exactly exactly yeah yeah when they were like map quest is up 50 50 times more traffic i'm like okay but what where are we starting where are we starting baby i think uh the next uh a candidate for uh president on the democratic side should just start saying things they are going to rename like that they're going to start they're going to rename it Trump-a-Bay for Tampa Bay.

40:36Just, like, pick things and be like, we're gonna just, I'm just gonna do that. Yeah, yeah. Like, name things after Trump that Trump wouldn't want named after him. Yeah, yeah. You think he wouldn't want Tampa Bay named after him? I don't know. I feel like, let's find out. That's a real diss on Tampa Bay. I didn't mean to diss Tampa Bay. Going hard on Tampa Bay. Just tried to find something that Trump would, you know, lay across well. The Gowanus Canal? How about the Gowanus Canal Superfund site? We'll name it. The Trump Superfund site. Everybody. That would be great. The Gowanus Canal. Yeah. If Zoran was like, all right, we're working hard to clean up the disgusting Trump Superfund site.

41:20That would be great. And even MapQuest is on board with this. Yes. Google. So there's a big skeleton on the map where it says, don't go in here. Like skeleton and bones. Trump Superfund site. Don't go in there. So it's just, but this is like a great example of his, like exactly what we're talking about, which is like his helplessness the second he doesn't get exactly what he wants. And as you mentioned last week when we were talking about this, he doesn't think about things even half a step ahead. Like his first move when he doesn't get exactly what he wants in this completely unnecessary trade war with a close ally and neighbor that's going to affect the midterm elections that are coming up, have major economic and political consequences.

42:05His first retaliatory move is, well, I'm renaming a lake. Yeah. I'm renaming a lake. I'm not doing anything. No, this is nothing anyone can be proud of. Yes. No work went into this. Yes. I just, you know, I signed a piece of paper. get Republicans on board. They're worried. They're worried. They're worried. The acronym is going to sound like Hamas.

42:30They're already preemptively. He has advisors. He has all kinds of advisors who are working on another name for Erie because they know Trump's going to want to do it. Yeah. They're like, just don't. It's nothing with an A. It's going to be Hamas. Talking about not thinking. Can I move on to Iran real quick? Of course. Yes. His sort of failure to not think one step ahead. We got to see in real time with an answer to the question about whether or not he would consider using nuclear weapons. Yes. Against Iran. You ruled out using a nuclear weapon against Iran. Well, I would never say that, but the answer is yes.

43:16I ruled out. I ruled out. There's no reason for it. What a stupid question that is, actually. Okay. I'm going to turn the tables on him and say, that's a stupid answer. To say that's a stupid question after answer was, I would never say, but the answer is yes. Yeah. That is so, the depth of how stupid that is. Yes. And then to realize how stupid your answer is and then to turn it around. and say it's a stupid question. Yeah. It's just some real, it's some real recess. Yeah, that's exactly what, it totally is. What bounces off me sticks to you. He really is, I'm rubber, you're glue, president. It's totally.

44:07Also, it's not a crazy question because he is, you know, he's so, obviously, in language only. Well, that's not true. You know, obviously, plenty of bombs. He said a civilization will die tonight. Yes. He said the words, An entire civilization will die tonight. But he's like, well, I'm not going to use nuclear. I'm no monster. Yeah. I'm not crazy. Now, I am wondering how many people jump off the oil tanker. We're not going to do a nuclear. We're going to build a series of arches. It's the perfect crime. The Trojan Arch. The Trojan Arch. You build arches and then people come and then no guardrails.

44:44There's going to be Dateline episodes about this husband built an arch for his wife. They were the perfect couple. He even built her an arch. A week later, she was dead. Was the arch as innocent as the neighbors were led to believe? Can we? So there's this guy. He's a Fox News. Is it Trey Yinks? Am I saying his name right? Trey seems to have a job where he literally has a direct line to the president, and he talks to him. But Trey's got a really tough job because he's talking to him every day, and he kind of breathlessly— If I have any issue with Trey, I just feel like it's his tone. I feel like he reports with the tone the president would want him to report with.

45:31Right. And while I don't begrudge him the fact that he has to say what the president told him, it is the breathless way in which he repeats it. And here's just a recent example. I just spoke with President Trump, who told Fox News the United States will respond to the Iranian attack on U.S. forces overnight in Jordan. The president said we're going to hit them hard. There will be a response. He indicated that all of the missiles except one were intercepted by U.S. air defense systems. One missile was identified as not going to hit anything significant, and they allowed it to pass through the airspace.

46:07This comes as the president said the Iranians want to meet so badly, but he doesn't know if you can count on them to make a deal. It really is. I just spoke to boy and he saw Wolf. Boy saw Wolf. Wolf was in village. Wolf gone by the time people woke up. And yet boy says Wolf will be back and Wolf will be hit hard. We're going to hit that Wolf hard. I mean, we could, I mean, you know, again, we're out of office, but like the super cup we could do of Trey saying that verse some version of that. Yeah. Well, we can say we can play right now. We can play right now. The clip we just played. This just happened a couple of weeks ago.

46:54We'll play it. We'll insert it right now. Where Trey told us he had a president, a conversation with the president where he threatened some very serious consequences. President Trump tells Fox News about Iran, we are going to beat the effing S out of them. And that's where, you know, again, like, that's where I would just say, like, you're allowed to also say, like, now, of course, we've heard this all before. Yeah. Yes. You're allowed to. You know what? This is a case where maybe you can at least, like, roll your eyes a little bit. Yeah. You've got to be like, oh, that's. Or just like, you know, that's what the expression grain of salt is for, Trey.

47:28The president took some time out of his true passion today of golfing and building a ballroom to answer my pesky and annoying questions about the Iran war that he started. One missile made it through. I initially thought it was four missiles only to realize the president had just had an errant tee shot. And the four was to warn fellow golfers. The president was trying to get through the round quickly so he could get back to his blueprints. the president building a trampoline to place under the arch. The president announced today that he is embarking on a new project. It's called the trampoline of America.

48:10You'll be able to find it on Google maps. It'll be written in Sharpie trampoline of America. Yeah. And right. And map quest is still calling it a tramp area. That's right. But overall, like just good week. I think a good read for Trump. What else we got? Is there anything? So there's one other thing, but I actually think this is like kind of a good summation of everything, which is like I picked something that we, you know, we've talked about a couple of things that we've predicted on this podcast. And the main reason is not to say like you don't have to be a genius to make these predictions. In fact, we were the whole point is to say that they were obvious when it was happening.

48:52So when we predicted, for example, that there would be a salmonella outbreak imminently, it's not because we were geniuses. It was because it was pretty fairly obvious based on the evidence in front of us of what the government was engaged in of these massive public health cuts that there was probably going to be a foodborne illness outbreak at some point. And predictably, there was just a couple of weeks later of that exact foodborne illness. And similarly, when we talked about the Supreme Court ruling in the ballroom, it's like the evidence has told us. And it's just confirmation that all of us who engage in this sort of conversation, cathartic processing of the news every day that this the way that we do with this episode or when we when we have our show back, our actual closer look in the studio with our 200 people in the audience and everybody who's watching along like this cathartic process that we engage in of like processing the news and saying, are we crazy?

49:42And the answer is we're not crazy because it's actually very. And so this is an example of that. There's constant recalls. And, you know, the list includes now, and I had a list here because it's unbelievable the degree to which, like, I was going to ask you, Seth, like, what are you on these days? Like, what's your diet? Like, how are you avoiding? How are you avoiding? Because let me tell you something. My favorite foods are blueberries, mangoes, iceberg lettuce, and alfalfa sprouts. That's a bad mix. This is the first time I've been out of the house in quite some time. Let me just tell you.

50:18That's what they call now the devil's cocktail.

50:25We're just on twigs. We're just like sucking the middle of a twig out. Sucking on twigs. Sucking on twigs from the chopped down trees. Yeah, totally. We're subsisting on grass in our house. But anyway. Which is people. Which is people. Sorry. Grass is people. Charlton Heston screaming. Grass is people. made out of people it's people

50:56anyway the point is the recalls have grown out of control and it's because uh of all these massive cuts that doge and the rest of the administration impose on our public health agencies. And we said this at the time in April of 2025, when this headline came across our transom. Our big question is just, again, going back to the campaign, it's like, why, who wanted this? Who asked for this? So this is us talking about that over a year and or April, May, June, July, August, over a year ago. You can just shock people by reading actual headlines like two-year-old U.S. citizen appears to have been deported with no meaningful process or Trump cuts threaten agency running meals on wheels or FDA making plans to end its routine food safety inspections which brings us to a new segment called who asked for this we're cutting food safety inspections now who asked for this seriously I'm asking even the most pro-Trump manga fanatics in the country is this what you voted for did you really want to make food poisoning great again?

52:07I remember seeing people at the Trump rallies dressed up as The Wall or Uncle Sam, but I don't remember anyone wearing an E. coli costume. I mean, seriously, who asked for this? I know RFK Jr. had a brain worm from some bad meat he ate, but I didn't think he was hoping to facilitate that for the rest of us. Although, if I do get a brain worm from some unexpected meat, I am definitely gonna let him co-host the show with me. You're grossed out now, but wait until you hear him sing.

52:45I will say in retrospect, I remember sitting in the studio and thinking, I did not, I was not expecting the worm to sing for that long. Yeah, it was a little bit long. That was not part of the plan. It was a little bit long. And it's good to be surprised again that it went on too long. Even while you're re-watching it right now, you're like, I can't believe, I can't. Like you even you hear it get a laugh in like the first second and you're like, OK, I hope that's the end of that. I hope it I hope it ended there on the laugh. And then you're like, no, it's more time here. But the point is just to say, like to reaffirm that when we say these things, it's not because we're like hysterical Trump derangement syndrome patients.

53:26It's because we're just observing reality with our own eyes and ears. And so when you see that the FDA is cutting back on food safety inspections, it's very obvious at the time to say, oh, wow, probably a bunch of people are going to get sick. And then it turns out 16 months later, everybody's got explosive diarrhea. So, you know, I'm just saying that we're right. And just saying we're right. Please, somebody, we're right. They've taken a lot of smoothie fruits and turned our stomachs into the blender. That's right. It's just now the stomach is the blender. Now, do people in France, when they get food poisoning, do they just...

54:07Hey, Emmanuel, it's me again. Follow-up, couple of follow-ups. At the visitor's desk, do you have to give name tags? Do people check them in? Are they wearing name tags? Okay, great, great, great. And when people jump, do they scream? Hold on one second. Hold on. Howard. Howard, I don't want to answer any more Iran questions. Tell them to ask me a question about the ballroom. We didn't even get to... There was a lot that we didn't get to, but we'll have more of these episodes, so we'll have more time to get to these, to all of this. For anybody who's asking, our first show back in the studio is September 21st.

54:56September 21st is when we'll be back in the studio We'll be back in the studio. We'll have a good long run of shows. One of the upsides of the summer break is more uninterrupted shows once the season starts in September. So we're looking forward to that. But we'll be back with another proof of life out of office. Oh, I haven't proved. Oh, yes. You haven't proved life yet. Come on. Stand by, everybody. Because obviously the whole point is for you guys to know that I am alive.

55:31Wait, hold on.

55:36So for those of you who can't see, Seth has just held up a whiteboard that said today, and then he made sure to write above it, and marker as well, Lake. Lake today. Lake today. Lake today. Lake today.

55:52That does sound like if you asked Trump to come up with a new name for Erie on the spot, he would just say today. And then tomorrow it's going to be who knows. We're facing it with a big trampoline. The trampoline, you jump off the yard, you hit the trampoline, you land in the lake. We saw it on an episode of Magoo. We got it from Magoo. People are Magoo-ing themselves. They're calling it Magoo. Do the Magoo. Thanks, everybody. Okay. Thank you, everybody. See you next week.

56:33Late Night with Seth Meyers airs weeknights on NBC at 1235, 1135 Central. Original music on the Late Night Podcast is by the HE Band. Don't forget to follow the handle LateNightSeth on social media and tell your friends to subscribe to the Late Night Podcast wherever they get their podcasts.