Michigan Representative Debbie Dingell made a massive dig at Donald Trump and his close aide Natalie Harp over the president’s threat to rename Lake Ontario to the wildly creative “Lake America.”
“Let’s just call it Lake Natalie so we know you’ll start protecting our Great Lakes,” Dingell wrote.
The congresswoman’s comment was a reference to Harp, Trump’s troublingly devoted aide who has drawn scrutiny in recent weeks for her comments to Trump and her closeness to him.
Dingell’s comments come amid Trump’s continued tensions with Canada. In addition to the tariffs he enacted in 2025, Trump announced an additional 50 percent tariff on the nation after a trade negotiation broke down over the weekend.
“The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to doing much business with Ontario any longer,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
open image in galleryCanadian officials largely shrugged off Trump’s threat.
“We’ll always call it Lake Ontario. Period. We’re proud of our Great Lakes,” Minister of Industry of Canada Mélanie Joly said during a tariff press conference. “We’ll just stand up for what we have … While all these shenanigans are happening, we’ll just be smart, we’ll be strategic, and we’ll fight back.”
Trump made his threat on Tuesday morning after Canada announced retaliatory tariffs against the U.S.
Ottawa announced on Tuesday that it was matching the U.S. tariffs “dollar for dollar,” levying a 50 percent duty on more than 700 U.S. goods.
The most significant of the tariffs is a 50 percent tariff on American steel and aluminum, which doubles the current duty on those products.
The new tariffs are expected to go into effect on September 8.
While Trump is facing opposition from Canadian leaders fighting back against his trade war, he is also taking flak domestically for his relationship with Harp.
On Friday, Trump tried to criticize progressive congressional candidate Abdul El-Sayed for his association with leftist Twitch streamer Hasan Piker.
El-Sayed responded on social media, asking Harp to put the president down for a nap.
“Natalie, I think he’s had a little too much iPad for the week. He needs his rest,” the candidate responded.
It was another Democrat — Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia — who pushed Harp into the spotlight on August 16 when he suggested during a speech that Trump doesn’t want to govern, he wants to “build his ballroom and travel with Natalie.”
open image in galleryHarp, 35, was one of the only people smuggled in a food container alongside Trump when he had to be evacuated from Turkey last month. She reportedly serves as his social media concierge, cultivating — and printing — memes and posts she believes he ought to see, according to the New York Times.
Harp was captured in video footage sprinting in pursuit of Trump’s golf cart at the president’s club in Scotland.
She reportedly apologized for being an “embarrassment” at the golf course sent Trump a note expressing her desire not to sour their relationship.
“I want things to always be right between us. I also know I’ve been distracted all week (forgetting to eat throughout the days, and even forgetting to sleep, and only catching a couple hours at a time),” she wrote.
Harp signed the letter “with all my heart, Natalie.”