“Now they kiss my ass”: Trump says he called Google about the Gulf

Donald Trump described his call to Google to a crowd at Northern Kentucky University on Saturday.

“I called Google, Google Maps. See, Google wouldn’t have taken my call in the first. Now they kiss my ass.” Donald Trump, at a rally in Highland Heights, Kentucky

He was speaking at the university’s Truist Arena in Highland Heights, at a midterm rally for Republican candidates. In the rally video, he was listing what he said he could do now that he could not have done before. He said this was “a much more powerful term” and that he could “do stuff that’s unbelievable”.

He then turned to a second name change. He said he had also renamed a lake in Canada as Lake America, referring to Lake Ontario.

What Google says

Google renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America on its maps last year. In August, it began labelling Lake Ontario as Lake America for US users. That came two days after Trump signed an executive order on the name.

Google said in a blog post at the time that it updates Maps to reflect name changes in “official government sources”. For the US, that source is the Geographic Names Information System. Google said the update followed its long-standing policy for bodies of water whose names vary from country to country.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Verge, which reported Trump’s remarks on Sunday.

Apple Maps also renamed the lake for US users in September. MapQuest refused to make the change.