Politics

President Donald Trump announced the name of Alaska’s highest peak — and North America’s tallest at over 20,000 feet — Denali, would be changed back to Mount McKinley.

Trump was sworn in as the 47th president on Monday, and made the announcement in his inaugural address, also promising to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico.

“A short time from now, we are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America,” Trump said. “And we will restore the name of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley, where it should be and where it belongs.”

William McKinley was the 25th president, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. Trump has praised his tariff policies, known as the McKinley tariffs, which raised taxes on some imported goods.

“President McKinley made our country very rich through tariffs and through talent — he was a natural businessman — and gave Teddy Roosevelt the money for many of the great things he did, including the Panama Canal, which has foolishly been given to the country of Panama,” he said.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski has opposed the name change.

“I strongly disagree with the President’s decision on Denali,” Murkowski said in a statement on Monday. “Our nation’s tallest mountain, which has been called Denali for thousands of years, must continue to be known by the rightful name bestowed by Alaska Koyukon Athabascans, who have stewarded the land since time immemorial.”

Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan has also publicly opposed the change, but did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.

In December, Sen. Sullivan repeated his support for the name Denali, via spokesperson Amanda Coyne, who said: “Senator Sullivan, like many Alaskans prefers the name that the very tough, very strong, very patriotic Athabascan people gave the mountain thousands of years ago – Denali.”

In the language of Interior Alaska’s Koyukon people, Denali means “the High One.”

The naming of the mountain prompted debate and national controversy for decades.

The name change effort from Mount McKinley to Denali began in 1975, when the Alaska Legislature asked the federal government to change the name. It was formally recognized by the Obama administration in 2015. It was seen as a victory in a larger movement to restore traditional indigenous place names, and acknowledge the history and heritage of Alaska Native peoples.

McKinley never visited Alaska, nor had any significant historical ties to the mountain or the state, according to the resolution renaming it. A local prospector named the mountain after the then-presidential nominee McKinley in 1896.

Reverting the name back to Mount McKinley is expected by executive order by Trump, directing the change to the secretary of the Interior. Doug Burgum, the Republican governor of North Dakota, is expected to be confirmed to that role.

It’s unclear whether the 6-million acre Denali National Park and Preserve will also be renamed. It was renamed in 1980, 35 years before the mountain’s name change.

Requests for comment to the Alaska Federation of Natives and the Tanana Chiefs Conference were not immediately returned on Monday.

WASHINGTON — President-Elect Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Energy got a warm reception Wednesday in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Sen. Lisa Murkowski lauded his enthusiasm for affordable, abundant energy.

“I love the fact that you’re a self-described energy geek,” she said at his confirmation hearing.

Chris Wright is the chief executive of Liberty Energy, an oilfield services company. He also calls himself “a science geek,” a tech nerd and an energy entrepreneur.

Like Murkowski, Wright promotes renewable energy while also supporting continued production of fossil fuel. She praised his acceptance of climate change.

“You have said before this committee, and in other places, that climate change is real. Is that correct?” she asked.

“Absolutely, Senator,” he said.

“And I heard you say this morning that the solution to climate change is how we evolve our energy system,” she said. “Is that a correct summation?

“Absolutely, Senator,” he said again.

“So, it’s about technology. We’re acknowledging it, ” she said, referring apparently to climate change. “We’re dealing with it. We’re living it. We’re feeling it.”

She said it was cold in Washington, D.C. that day, while temperatures in Alaska were too high.

“We’re seeing changes that are detrimental to our system,” she said. “Our thermostat is out of whack, and we want to have the Arctic temperatures up north. But one of the ways that we know we’re going to get there is through our technologies that will help us adapt, mitigate, and to really help prevent.”

Outside of the committee room, some Democratic senators weren’t taken with Wright’s all-of-the-above energy approach.

“What makes Mr. Wright so troubling, however, is that he is perfectly willing to admit that climate change is happening while rejecting that we should do anything about it,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor. “He says calling climate change a crisis is pure fear-mongering.”

Wright said in a video posted on social media in 2023 that there is no climate crisis. He gained some internet fame in 2019 for another video in which he drank fracking fluid, to demonstrate its safety.

WASHINGTON —Some senators tossed softballs to the nominee to lead the Defense Department.

“Tell me something about your wife that you love,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., said during his seven-minute opportunity to question Pete Hegseth.

Others, like Sen. Tammy Duckworkth, D-Ill, played interrogator.

“Yes or no?” she demanded repeatedly, talking over Hegseth. “Yes or no? Did you lead an audit? I will take that as no.”

Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, played from his album of greatest hits.

“Now for the most important question you will receive all day,” Sullivan said, straight-faced. “In 1935 before the Congress, the father of the United States Air Force General Billy Mitchell …”

Even casual observers of hearings in this committee knew which Mitchell quote was coming.

“‘’In the future, whoever holds this place will control the world. This location is the most strategic place in the world.’ What place was Billy Mitchell talking about?” Sullivan asked. “And let me give you a hint: It wasn’t Greenland.”

“I believe he was talking about the great State of Alaska,” Hegseth said.

With that, Hegseth aced Sullivan’s favorite Armed Services hearing question.

Hegseth is one of Trump’s most controversial nominees. Democratic senators grilled him about allegations of sexual assault and mismanaging the budgets of veteran organizations he ran. He denied all of it, and disavowed his prior declarations that women have no place in combat. It made for a contentious hearing.

But confirmation hearings are never just about the nominee. They are also a chance for senators to make their own points — to a potential cabinet member, to fellow senators, and in a high-profile hearing like this one, to the nation at large. Sullivan, as is his practice, used the opportunity to make the case for more military investment back home.

“Mr. Hegseth, if confirmed, will you work with me, this committee and the incoming commander in chief on continuing to build up our military assets and infrastructure in Alaska, to reestablish deterrence in the Arctic and in the Indo Pacific?” he asked.

With pleasure, Hegseth said.

Sullivan has enthusiastically endorsed Hegseth, and all 14 Republican members of the committee sounded inclined to give him a thumbs-up when the committee votes, likely next week.

That would clear the nomination for the Senate floor. One of the few Republicans who sounds on the fence about Hegseth is Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

“If you’re going to be managing an operation as significant as the Department of Defense, okay, this is, this is big, right? You want to make sure that you do have a level of of management expertise,” she said.

Murkowski isn’t on the Armed Services Committee but she said she’d listen carefully to the recorded hearing. And she met with Hegseth privately last month and asked him about the two veterans organizations he is accused of mismanaging. She said she’ll likely have follow-up questions for him.

Murkowski isn’t ready to say how she’ll vote on Hegseth, or even whether he’s the most difficult confirmation decision for her. But she acknowledged, he’s the one drawing the most constituent attention.

“I was quizzing the staff that work the phones. ‘Who are we hearing the most incoming about?,” she said in an interview in her Senate office suite. “And it certainly is the secretary of Defense nominee right now.”

It’s a huge week for confirmation hearings in the Senate, with the nominees to lead the CIA, the EPA and the departments of Energy, Interior, Justice, State, Transportation and Treasury all on the schedule.

Alaska prosecutors will again attempt to convict a former state legislator on election-tampering charges after their first attempt ended with a hung jury late last year.

In a Monday court hearing, Alaska Chief Assistant Attorney General Jenna Gruenstein confirmed that the Alaska Department of Law is continuing its case against Gabrielle LeDoux, a Republican who represented Kodiak in the Alaska House from 2005 to 2009 and an Anchorage district from 2013 to 2021.

In spring 2020, state prosecutors accused LeDoux of illegally encouraging people who lived outside her district to cast votes within the district. Some charges were dismissed, but LeDoux faced five felony charges and seven misdemeanor charges this year.

Her case was repeatedly postponed and reached trial in November, more than four years after initial charges were filed.

Two other people, including a former LeDoux aide, also faced state charges but accepted plea deals in exchange for testifying against LeDoux.

After a week of court arguments, jurors split for and against LeDoux’s guilt, and Judge Kevin Saxby declared a mistrial.

On Monday, an attorney representing LeDoux said he is asking an additional expert to testify at the next trial. The state has filed a motion to preclude that testimony.

Both sides are expected to trade another round of written briefings on the disagreement, with the issue to be decided before a second trial.

On Monday, Saxby set Feb. 3 as the date of the next hearing between the two sides.

WASHINGTON — Congresswoman Mary Peltola is still in office. That changes Jan. 3, when Nick Begich III is sworn in as Alaska’s representative in the U.S. House.

But “in office” is a metaphor. She no longer has a physical office at the Capitol. The House booted her from her office suite after she lost. This awkward administrative send-off is routine for any losing House candidate, but it came as a surprise to Peltola. As it would. She is the first Alaskan to lose re-election to the U.S. House since 1966.

She sometimes sounds philosophical about her defeat.

“I’m not upset about the loss at all,” she said, from a political consultant’s office a few blocks from her old digs at the Cannon House Office Building. “I have known my whole life that politics is about timing and luck. It’s all about timing. And two years ago, the tide and the wind and the current were all in our favor, and this time, they were totally against us.”

In 2022, she won a special election and then the regular election. Back then, the two Republicans in the race, Sarah Palin and Nick Begich, went after each other. Peltola could stay above the fray. At the Alaska Federation of Natives convention that year, Palin had nothing but praise for her Democratic rival.

“We’re in Mary’s house. I know that. And I’m just as proud as all of you are,” Palin gushed at the time.

This year the political seas had changed. Other Republican candidates dropped out, focusing conservative support on Begich. And Donald Trump was on the ballot, inspiring more Republican voters to the polls. About 18,000 Alaska Trump voters split their ticket to vote for Peltola. Still, she fell about 8,000 votes short. With the presidential race as it was, Peltola says hers was unwinnable.

“We worked really hard. There wasn’t anything more we could have done to squeeze out 8000 more votes. That’s a lot of votes in Alaska,” she said. “There were a lot of Democrats who supported me, and a lot of Republicans and independents and nonpartisans. And who can be upset about that?”

She’s proud of her work for Arctic oil development at Willow, against the supermarket merger, as well as her work on fish policy and icebreaker acquisition.

But she’s pessimistic that the House can tackle the nation’s problems. The hyperpartisanship runs too deep, she said, and the two-year election cycle drives everything. The fundraising pressure is unrelenting.

“You have to sign a contract saying that you will do this many hours of call time per day, and you will raise this much money a quarter. And they’re really big targets if you’re from a front line state,” she said.

McParland describes it as more of an internal strategy.

“These are our benchmarks. This is what we have to do to get to the money that we need each quarter,” he said. “And we did that. And it didn’t get us what we needed to do. But I think that’s very much a function of national currents.”

With McParland’s help, Peltola raised $13 million, more than all but a handful of other House candidates.

Her time in office was marked by a huge personal loss – the death of her husband, Gene Peltola, in a plane crash.

Among her favorite congressional memories was a dinner they were invited to in her first year. The scene was the grand and formal Statuary Hall at the Capitol, the former House chamber. Peltola was to give the opening prayer.

“My husband had said, you really should do the prayer in Yup’ik. And I said, No, I want people to understand what I’m saying,” she recalled. “So I did the prayer in English, and I sat down, and the former speaker of the House said, Oh, I was really hoping you do it in your language.”

Then another Democratic leader said the same thing. Peltola got a do-over. After dinner, she said the prayer again, in Yup’ik.

“To be asked – expected to and asked — and given two chances to do the prayer in my language was really meaningful,” she said. “Because for decades and centuries, there has been a concerted effort to erase Native people, erase languages, erase cultures. And to be able to offer a prayer in Yup’ik was just deeply, deeply meaningful to me. And for there to be a desire to hear that,”

Peltola said she’s looking forward to having a private life again. She’s only willing to joke about any future political plans.

“in 2026 I intend to run for governor, U.S. Senate and U.S. House,” she said. “All at the same time.”

Whatever she does, she said she knows she’ll work with McParland again. He was instrumental to her campaigns and her congressional office, and the two have become fast friends.

President-elect Donald Trump is again threatening to revert the name of North America’s tallest peak from Denali to Mount McKinley, resurrecting an unfulfilled promise from his first campaign.

Trump brought up the proposal Sunday during a rambling, hour-long speech at a Turning Point USA rally in Phoenix, Ariz. Just after he vowed to repatriate the Panama Canal from Panama – prompting resistance from Panama’s president, according to USA Today – Trump turned to a discussion of the mountain’s former namesake, 19th-century President William McKinley from Ohio.

“McKinley was a very good, maybe a great president,” Trump said. “They took his name off Mount McKinley, right? That’s what they do to people. Now, he was a great president, very good president. At a minimum, he was a very good businessman. He was a businessman, then a governor, very successful businessman.”

Trump claimed McKinley built the nation’s wealth in the 1890s by imposing tariffs, which Trump now backs imposing on a wide array of goods imported from China, Canada, Mexico and other nations. Some economists took issue with Trump’s account of McKinley during this year’s presidential campaign, noting that McKinley supported “a policy of good will and friendly trade relations,” as well as the economic value immigration brought to America.

Trump also likened McKinley to Theodore Roosevelt, who succeeded him upon his assassination in 1901. The president-elect credited McKinley with “creating a vast sum of money” for Roosevelt’s administration.

“So let’s say they were both excellent presidents, but McKinley did that,” Trump said. “And that’s one of the reasons that we’re going to bring back the name of Mount McKinley, because I think he deserves it. I think he deserves it.”

Denali was renamed in 2015 under then-President Barack Obama, the highlight of an Alaska trip he took to raise awareness of climate change. The change drew approval at a subsequent meeting of the Tanana Chiefs Conference, where an advisor to Obama’s Interior secretary said the decision was “about respect.”

Trump had pushed back on the Indigenous name during his first presidential run in 2016, promising “I will change back!” in an X post. He never did so, however.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who had thanked Obama for changing the mountain’s name, was succinct in a social-media post on X responding to Trump Sunday.

“You can’t improve upon the name that Alaska’s Koyukon Athabascans bestowed on North America’s tallest peak, Denali – the Great One,” Murkowski said in a longer statement on Monday. “For years, I advocated in Congress to restore the rightful name for this majestic mountain to respect Alaska’s first people who have lived on these lands for thousands of years. This is an issue that should not be relitigated.”

Amanda Coyne, a spokeswoman for Sen. Dan Sullivan, shared a similar sentiment in a Monday email.

“Senator Sullivan like many Alaskans prefers the name that the very tough, very strong, very patriotic Athabaskan people gave the mountain thousands of years ago—Denali,” Coyne said.

Calls and emails to outgoing Rep. Mary Peltola and Rep.-elect Nick Begich, as well as Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s office, weren’t immediately returned Monday.