Dems: Forget airport, better to name prison after Trump
Furious Democrats pushed back hard Tuesday against a Republican proposal to rename Dulles International Airport after former President Donald Trump.
Lawmakers from northern Virginia and elsewhere derisively mocked the plan introduced by GOP colleagues to slap the name of the twice impeached, four times indicted president on the main international airport serving Washington, D.C.
“Donald Trump is facing 91 felony charges. If Republicans want to name something after him, I’d suggest they find a federal prison,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said in a statement.
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said the effort to valorize Trump reflects his authoritarian grip on the Republican Party, which he compared to that of North Korean strongman Kim Jong Un.
“They know our airport will never be named after Trump,” Beyer said. “The point is to suck up to their Dear Leader.”
The two-page bill introduced by Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, a member of the GOP House leadership serving Pennsylvania’s 14th District, would officially rename Dulles as Donald J. Trump International Airport
“As millions fly through the airport… there is no better symbol of freedom, prosperity and strength than hearing ‘Welcome to Trump International Airport’ as they land on American soil,” Reschenthaler said in a statement.
So far, six far right-wing GOP lawmakers have co-sponsored the bill.
The bill has virtually no chance of becoming law; it would have to pass the evenly divided House of Representatives and would be unlikely to even get a vote in the Democratic-led Senate. President Biden would need to sign the bill even if it were to somehow pass Congress.
The Washington, D.C., area already has one airport named after a Republican ex-president. Former President Bill Clinton in 1998 signed a measure naming Washington National Airport after Ronald Reagan.
Rep. Jennifer Wexton, a retiring Democrat whose northern Virginia district includes Dulles, said the bill shows how “unserious” Republicans are about actually getting work done.
“Let’s get to work on the real issues the American people sent us here for, not renaming an airport after someone who sought to undermine our democracy,” Wexton said.