Ahead of his visit to Alaska to highlight climate change, Barack Obama announced the renaming of the tallest mountain in North America. The 20,237 ft peak bore the name of McKinley since 1896, when William McKinley was first nominated for President. President Obama changed the name back to its original native Alaskan name, Denali.
Glenn explained the real reason he thinks Obama did this on radio.
Listen.
Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors.
GLENN: So why did the president change the name or threaten to change the name of Mount McKinley to Denali?
STU: He did it too. It's not a threat. It's done.
GLENN: It's just done?
STU: It's done. He did it on his own. Now, I don't care at all about the name of the stupid mountain to be perfectly honest. I don't care.
GLENN: I don't either.
PAT: We've grown up our whole lives with it.
GLENN: I can't believe that the president, one man, can just -- with the stroke of a pen make this change.
STU: Right. And people in Alaska are saying, well, this is what we call it. And that's great. Well, then you just need to have a bill get through Congress and pass it, and then it will change. It was passed in a bill to change it to name it Mount McKinley.
GLENN: You know what, it's too hard.
PAT: It's too hard.
GLENN: It's so much easier if we just have one guy make the decision for us.
PAT: A republic is so messy. It takes a long time. I don't want to do all that.
STU: They passed a bill in Congress in 1917 to name it Mount McKinley.
PAT: Why can't we have a dictator who just does things? Oh, wait.
GLENN: Not a dictator. Not a dictator. An administrator. Right?
PAT: An administrator. Okay. Yeah, he administrates. Nothing wrong with that.
STU: Their justification seems to be, there was a bill passed in 1917. Since then, there have been contradictory bills that have been proposed to change the name or keep it the same. And since none of them really worked out, we can act because, quote, we can act if the board does not act within a reasonable time, they can -- they can move ahead with it.
PAT: That's the same kind of nonsense --
GLENN: What!
PAT: -- he said with health care. Uh, we've tried to do this for 100 years, and we've delayed it too long. Well, you tried to do it for 100 years, and we didn't get it done because the American people didn't want it.
STU: Right.
PAT: And they still didn't want it, and you did it anyway.
JEFFY: Well, the United States Board on Geographic Names has been deferring it to Congress for all these years, and they've just decided they're not going to defer it anymore.
STU: Right. Like what is that?
PAT: Jeez.
STU: Again, the issue itself is completely meaningless to me. I don't care. But this is what they do with everything. He's just doing it because he feels like he wants to do something nice for I guess natives of America that call it Denali.
PAT: Can he change the name of Reagan International before he leaves office?
STU: I think, yeah. I would not be surprised.
PAT: Another Republican, he has to get rid of that.
STU: Their justification is, by the way, well, he never visited. He never visited Mount McKinley. McKinley never visited Mount McKinley. It's stupid.
Maybe that's because he got executed.
PAT: Yeah, he was killed.
STU: Could it be potentially because he didn't have a nice retirement to go visit mountains in Alaska because he was dead. Could it potentially have been that? I bet you that he may have gone to visit Mount McKinley --
PAT: It's not like Alaska was a state at the time either. It's like, hey, I think I'll go see that really cool territory up there. You know, you don't take 4,000-mile trips in 1890. Stupid.
GLENN: So why is -- why did he change the name? I watched Buck Sexton last night on the Blaze. I think he had the right answer. Misdirection. Pay no attention to what I'm really doing up here with climate change. Don't let anybody talk about what I'm really doing on climate change. You just get everybody to be outraged and talk about Mount McKinley or Denali.
PAT: That's what he does.
GLENN: It's always, watch the other hand, with this guy. This is misdirection. What's he doing up there on climate change?
Featured Image: General view of the West face of Mt. McKinley in Denali National Park in Alaska. (Photo by: Mike Powell/Getty Images)