Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced plans Friday to rename Lake Michigan as Lake Illinois and annex Green Bay.
In a seemingly satirical video posted on X, formerly Twitter, the governor revealed he was making “an important announcement.”
“The world’s finest geographers, experts who study the Earth’s natural environment, have concluded a decades-long council and determined that a great lake deserves to be named after a great state. So today, I’m issuing a proclamation declaring that hereinafter, Lake Michigan shall be known as Lake Illinois. The proclamation has been forwarded to Google to ensure the world’s maps reflect this momentous change,” Pritzker revealed.
The “announcement” follows President Donald Trump’s earlier executive orders renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America and returning Alaska’s Mount Denali to Mount McKinley.
“America will reclaim its rightful place as the greatest, most powerful, most respected nation on earth, inspiring the awe and admiration of the entire world. A short time from now, we are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and we will restore the name of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley, where it should be and where it belongs,” Trump said at the time.
In his video, Pritzker then switches his attention to a city near Lake Michigan in neighboring Wisconsin — a city Illinoisans know well.
“In addition, the recent announcement that to protect the homeland, the United States will be purchasing Greenland … Illinois will now be annexing Green Bay to protect itself against enemies, foreign and domestic,” Pritzker said in the video. “I’ve also instructed my team to work diligently to prepare for an important announcement next week regarding the Mississippi River. God bless America and bear down. Thank you.”
Green Bay, Wisconsin, home of the Packers, has long been considered the Chicago Bears’ biggest rival.
Again, the remarks appear to highlight another Trump plan. Since his first term in office, Trump has expressed interest in acquiring Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, a longtime U.S. ally and a founding member of NATO. It is also home to a large U.S. military base.
Now in his second term, Trump has once again floated the idea that the U.S. could buy Greenland from Denmark, which has shown no interest in parting with the island.
While his tone remains serious in the winkingly obvious video, Pritzker has not explicitly noted the joking nature of his video.
Pritzker has long been a vocal critic of Trump and the footage comes just one day after the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Illinois and Chicago over immigration policies.
