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WASHINGTON — In a move that would make Orwell blush and mapmakers weep, the Trump White House has indefinitely banned The Associated Press for its reckless and unpatriotic use of three utterly scandalous words: “Gulf of Mexico.” 

The AP, a journalistic behemoth that has covered everything from presidential inaugurations to alien sightings in Roswell, found itself persona non grata in the Oval Office this week. The offense? Refusing to comply with the administration’s recent linguistic rebranding of the massive body of water along America’s southern coast. As of last month, per President Donald Trump’s decree, it is now the “Gulf of America”—a name so deeply embraced by the federal government that even the NOAA website briefly crashed from the sheer weight of its disbelief. 

The AP, however, remained defiant. The rest of the world—including Mexico, science, and history books—has not jumped on board with the rebranding. In its reporting, the AP continued to acknowledge Mexico's existence in connection with the Gulf, a decision the White House has labeled “divisive” and “an outright endorsement of fake geography.” 

On Friday, just before President Trump embarked on his weekend pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, the administration made it official: the AP is barred from Air Force One. Forever. Possibly longer. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich took to X (formerly Twitter, formerly the only place where government officials seem to make policy announcements anymore) to justify the move, saying, “While the First Amendment protects their right to irresponsible and dishonest reporting, it does not ensure their privilege of unfettered access to limited spaces, like the Oval Office and Air Force One.” In other words: the First Amendment lets you talk nonsense, but not near the president. 

AP photographers are still allowed to attend presidential events in a move that raises more questions than answers. However, it remains unclear whether they must take a solemn oath to refer to the Gulf as “America’s Favorite Southern Water Feature.” 

Historically, the AP has been a cornerstone of White House coverage since the days of President James A. Garfield, when an intrepid AP journalist sat outside the wounded president’s bedroom in 1881, listening to him breathe. The news agency, founded before anyone in Washington had a telephone or even a decent mustache, has been a mainstay of political reporting ever since. That tenure is now in jeopardy. Legal action is already in the works. As one AP staffer remarked anonymously, “It’s hard to come up with a clearer case of viewpoint discrimination—unless, of course, they start banning reporters for using ‘Pacific Ocean.’” 

Meanwhile, the White House Correspondents’ Association isn’t taking this lying down. “This is a textbook violation of not only the First Amendment but the president’s executive order on freedom of speech and ending federal censorship,” the WHCA declared on Thursday, in what will almost certainly be dismissed as "fake news" by lunchtime Friday. 

While the AP weighs its legal options, global cartographers are reportedly in crisis. They are debating whether the administration’s next target will be the Atlantic Ocean—after all, why should Europe get half of it?