On Sunday, September 6, 2026, Trump spent much of the evening posting apparently AI-generated images to Truth Social. Two drew the most attention.
The first was a map of New Mexico with the word “Mexico” struck through in red and replaced with “America.” The White House reshared it on X. No explanation accompanied it, and the White House has announced no effort to rename the state. In a separate post Trump wrote that many people had suggested changing the name, and called “New America” a more prestigious and beautiful name for the state.
The second was an image of the moon captioned “THE MOON IS OURS.” No country owns the moon. The Outer Space Treaty, which the United States signed and ratified, forbids national appropriation of celestial bodies.
On the state, the legal position is straightforward. A president can change what federal databases call a geographic landmark through the Geographic Names Information System, which is how the Gulf of Mexico became the Gulf of America by executive order in January 2025 and how Lake Ontario became “Lake America” in late August 2026 (see Trump Renames Lake Ontario 'Lake America' and Orders Every Federal Reference to the Old Name Deleted). A president cannot rename a state. That is a matter for the state itself. New Mexico's name predates the founding of the United States, going back to the 16th century.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said the state's name “isn't up for debate,” and framed the post as a distraction: “While the President tries to distract Americans from his disastrous war in Iran, gas prices keep soaring. While the White House wastes time coloring on maps, Nuevo México is busy doing the work.” Sen. Martin Heinrich wrote, “Three things I will always call by their actual names. The Gulf of Mexico. Lake Ontario. New Mexico.”
The same evening's posts included a map that appeared to show the United States absorbing a number of other countries. The pattern is by now familiar rather than novel (see Trump Reshares an AI-Generated Map Renaming the Strait of Hormuz the 'Strait of Trump' as Brent Crude Tops $125 a Barrel and Gas Hits $4.30 a Gallon and Trump Renames the Defense Department the 'Department of War' by Executive Order).
The map and the moon were two posts out of a great many. HuffPost counted more than 60 Truth Social posts on Sunday alone, between 9:10 a.m. and 10:35 p.m. The Daily Beast counted at least 108 between 9:24 p.m. Saturday and 9:27 p.m. Monday, an average of 2.2 an hour with bursts of a post a minute. Alongside the New Mexico maps (six of them, by the Daily Beast's count) were AI-generated images of Trump's face on Hulk Hogan's body, Trump commanding an army of robots, Trump on horseback beside George Washington, Robert De Niro holding a “Trump is my president” shirt, fighter jets bombing Iran's Kharg Island, the Strait of Hormuz labeled U.S. territory, and a video of Trump dancing. He posted about stock trades, wrote “So sad what is happening in Spain, a country with ZERO control of its Border,” declared that “Canada's Dollar imbalance with the U.S. is unacceptable,” and issued the Bombardier ultimatum, “NO MORE SELLING BOMBARDIER IN THE UNITED STATES!” (see Trump Orders "No More Selling Bombardier in the United States," and Republicans From Bombardier States Push Back).
One post was personal. After Rep. Debbie Dingell introduced a bill to keep Lake Ontario's name, Trump wrote: “Upon his death, I gave Congressman John Dingell, the Royal Sendoff, MAXED OUT! His wife, Debbie Dingbat, called me and thanked me profusely, while crying uncontrollably.” John Dingell, the longest-serving member of Congress in history, died in 2019; Trump had mocked him at a rally that year by suggesting he might be “looking up” from hell.
He kept going on Labor Day. Forbes reported that Trump posted about renaming New Mexico seven times in the span of an hour on Monday, including an AI video of himself slapping “America” over a “Welcome to New Mexico” road sign, after state leaders had already rejected the idea. The whole episode began with a satirical post falsely claiming he had signed an executive order renaming the state, which Snopes debunked; Trump has signed no such order and cannot rename a state. The volume is consistent with the record-setting pace documented earlier in the year (see Trump Posts a Record 861 Times in a Month, Then Appears to Doze Off in an Oval Office Briefing, as Questions About His Fitness Grow).
The New Mexico map and the moon caption were two items in a much longer run. Trump spent more than ten hours that Sunday posting dozens of apparently AI-generated images, and the rest of them are worth recording together.
On money, one image showed him at a desk surrounded by stock market monitors, captioned: “I do this for our Country, not myself. I've made Hundreds of Billions of Dollars on Stocks, and many other type Holdings, for the U.S.A., not myself, and all I do is get criticized by the Radical Left Dumocrats.” He offered no figures, no list of holdings and no evidence. The administration did take a 10 percent stake in Intel in August 2025, which CNBC reported is now worth more than $50 billion, a large number that is not the same as the one he claimed.
On the war, he posted dozens of images of Iran being destroyed, including explosions at Kharg Island captioned “Bye bye, Kharg,” himself swinging an American-flag hammer at a map of Iran, and himself watching explosions from the deck of a warship. He also posted infographics asserting Iran's currency is “destroyed” and that “Iran is a Failing Nation,” without sourcing. Iran's economy has contracted and its inflation has reached historic highs, but analysts have cautioned against treating collapse as imminent (see A Congressional Research Service Tally Puts Trump's Iran War Losses at Up to 42 Aircraft and 13 U.S. Troops Killed, as Officials Privately Put the Cost Near $50 Billion).
On himself, the images cast him as an action hero: flanked by futuristic robots in front of the Capitol, as a wrestler in a red MAGA cap draped in the flag, and as the commander of a Space Force center.
On territory, beyond New Mexico and the moon, one image labeled the Strait of Hormuz a “new U.S. Territory” and another applied “Lake America” to Lake Ontario, which the United States shares with Canada (see Trump Reshares an AI-Generated Map Renaming the Strait of Hormuz the 'Strait of Trump' as Brent Crude Tops $125 a Barrel and Gas Hits $4.30 a Gallon and Trump Renames Lake Ontario 'Lake America' and Orders Every Federal Reference to the Old Name Deleted).
Also on Sunday, September 6, he posted, without additional comment, a mockup of a new Space Force service dress uniform in “space gray” and “midnight black” with knee-high leather boots and epaulettes. The accompanying graphic said the design was “inspired by the discipline and functionality of the Starship Trooper uniform” and “modernized for the guardians of the space domain.” Starship Troopers is a 1997 film whose director, Paul Verhoeven, intended it to satirize the fascist themes he saw in the novel it was adapted from, and the design drew immediate comparisons to Imperial uniforms in Star Wars.
On September 15, Starship Troopers director Paul Verhoeven told The Hollywood Reporter, “When [the Trump administration] talks about Starship Troopers, they should be aware that it's based on the style of Leni Riefenstahl,” adding, “I don't know if this president is aware that the movie says these [characters] are fascists without knowing that they're fascists. That's the point.” Verhoeven was describing the film, not assessing the new design, and nothing shows the mockup is actual Space Force policy.
Correction (September 16, 2026): an earlier version of this entry said Trump posted the uniform mockup the day after his September 6 posting spree and quoted the graphic as “inspired by the discipline of the Starship Trooper uniform.” He posted it on September 6, and the graphic reads “inspired by the discipline and functionality of the Starship Trooper uniform.”
Update (October 20, 2026): on October 19 Trump posted, “New Mexico should immediately change its name to New America. We are not Mexico, we are the United States of America!” and added, “Maybe even the Crooked Elections, that New Mexico is known for, would become honest again!” He “offered no evidence” for the election claim, Fox News reported. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham responded, “This tired New American bit again? You have to ask — what policy failure is Trump trying to distract Americans from this time?”