Alaska Governor Dunleavy Wants To Discuss Denali Name Change With Trump

Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy has been an unabashed loyalist toward President Donald Trump, and he hopes to score a meeting with the POTUS to discuss Trump’s desire to restore the name of the nation’s tallest mountain. Trump wants Mount McKinley to be the name of the mountain again, which would strip away the Native Alaskan-inspired Denali, which the peak has been officially known as since 2015.

Dunleavy has mostly fawned over Trump as first the 45th and now the 47th president.

So it’s fascinating to ponder how much he’ll push the commander-in-chief given how adamant Trump has been over this and several other issues he made a point of to pursue on his first day back in the White House. Here are some details from the Anchorage Daily News:

Alaska’s two Republican senators have both said they would prefer the mountain’s name to remain Denali. The state’s lone U.S. representative, also a Republican, has not taken a position on the topic.

Dunleavy, who largely celebrated executive actions taken by Trump during his first day in office, said during a press conference on Wednesday that he would refrain from saying whether he supported the name change until after he spoke about it directly with the president.

“I look forward to sitting down with him and having a conversation to truly understand the motivation,” said Dunleavy, adding that he planned to pursue a meeting with Trump while on a trip to Washington, D.C. next month.