Trump's airport logo breaks this cardinal rule of presidential airport logos
Plus: This clever ad turns a bad reputation into a punchline
The logo for the Florida airport that’s soon to be renamed after President Donald Trump looks more like the logo for a presidential library than an actual airport.
Palm Beach County officials voted today to advance an agreement to license Trump’s name and rename the Palm Beach International Airport after him. Brand guidelines for the new airport published in the naming rights and license agreement signed by Trump and representatives from DTTM Operations, his trademark company, show the mark they agreed on, and it looks like a presidential seal.
The logo shows a gold bald eagle positioned like the bald eagle in the seal, except the airport version carries olive branches for peace in both its talons instead of olive branches in one and arrows in the other. The logo uses visual elements from Trump’s brand, like the motif of five stars from his campaign logo, and the new airport name is spelled out in Trajan, a serif typeface used by Trump’s businesses.
It certainly looks Trumpian, but the problem is this isn’t how airports named after presidents are branded. From Abraham Lincoln to George H.W. Bush, no airport named after a president in the U.S. centers their namesake’s highest office in their visual identities. That Trump’s does is instructive of the larger conflicts of interest he’s pursuing in his second term with the airport and other ventures, like cryptocurrency and branded merch.
The soon-to-be President Donald J. Trump International Airport is unprecedented as no U.S. airport has been named after a president while he was still in office. In addition, no president has ever trademarked their name for their airport like Trump has, according to the New Republic.
The airport’s trademark deal obtained by the Miami Herald includes unusual language giving Trump’s family the ability to profit off the new name. Trump’s company can choose a list of approved retailers for the airport to buy its branded merchandise from, and the agreement leaves open the possibility it can sell its own airport-branded items off site. Trump also has the final say over how his image, likeness, and biographical information is used at the airport, per the agreement. Trust that if there’s a plaque by baggage claim about the airport’s namesake, it won’t mention Jan. 6, Trump’s two impeachments, or his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
The logos for airports named after former U.S. presidents lean into the airport part of their names instead of the president part, with visual elements like swooping lines evoking wings and flight paths. There’s nary a presidential-style seal graphic in sight, which reads post-presidential, like in the logos for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library or Richard Nixon Foundation that both use seals with eagles in them.
Instead, JFK’s logo shows a globe, while a jet trail is pictured behind the Washington Monument and U.S. Capitol in the logo for D.C.’s Reagan National. The closest a logo actually gets to referencing its namesake is in Little Rock, Arkansas, where the mark for Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport shows a jet-style triangle making a double C. Then there’s the logo for the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, which doesn’t even have his name in it and just spells out its code IAH.
Trump’s airport logo doesn’t fit in with the rest when it comes to aesthetics, but neither does it fit in with the rest when it comes to precedent. For a president who flouts norms and uses the state for self promotion and self enrichment, a branded airport is just the latest example of Trump making government and public infrastructure all about him.
Naming an airport after an elected official was once an honor bestowed after a career in public service. For Trump, it’s a licensing deal now.
This clever ad turns a bad reputation into a punchline
In “Not Like Most,” California gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter leans into two things she’s best known for: white boards and being a dick.
Pardon my language, but Porter, a Democrat who represents an Orange County district in the U.S. House, brings white boards to write on to make her point in House hearings, and she’s also earned a reputation as something of a tough boss.
Video surfaced in 2025 showing Porter berating a staff member to get out of her shot during a webinar with then-Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm in 2021 (“Get out of my f*****g shot!” she said), and anonymous accusations about how hard she is to work for have appeared on the Dear White Staffers social media accounts. In another incident caught on camera last year, Porter had a tense moment with a local TV news reporter and threatened to walk out but didn’t.
Rather than run from her reputation, Porter references it directly in her new ad. It’s a smart play for Porter, but it also highlights a larger point: in many of this year’s primaries, Democrats are looking for fighters, and having a reputation as one — even if impolite — can be a real asset.
“I’m not like most people who run for governor,” Porter says in the opening of her new 30-second ad. But instead of getting into how she runs her House office or berating her staff, she talks about her experience running a house in Trump’s America today.
“I actually get what you’re going through. A single mom of three kids, I know what it’s like to push the shopping cart. My minivan has almost 200,000 miles. I have a grown kid who may soon be living on my couch,” Porter says.
The visuals show her pushing a shopping cart through a grocery store aisle, pumping gas at a gas station, and at home with her grown kid, and through it all, background actors hold white boards with messages about costs like “Childcare Costs,” “Too Expensive,” and “Sky-High Gas Prices.”
In the closing scene, Porter’s in a park surrounded by people whose white boards show more pointed, political messages, like “Dump Trump #NoKings,” “Call Out Racism,” and “Abolish ICE.”
“To give Californians what they need, it’s going to take standing up to Donald Trump, calling out greedy corporations, and stepping on some toes along the way,” Porter says before getting to her punchline, directed to her supporters behind her: “Now, could you guys please get out of my shot?” They laugh. Fin.
The message is that while you might have heard a few things about Porter, she’s someone who’s ready to fight for you and against Trump. It’s an attempt to turn a potential liability into an advantage, and it comes at a time when being rough around the edges can be a plus.
Maine’s Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, who’s called for investigations into Trump and his administration, outlasted his opponent despite a controversial tattoo and past Reddit posts, while in Illinois, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton won her primary race for U.S. Senate after airing a memorable “F*** Trump” ad that had to be censored for TV. In Trump’s second term, it’s clear voters are questioning the old rules of civil, courteous Democratic politics and electability. A 2025 CBS News-YouGov poll found 65% of Democrats want their leaders in Congress to oppose Trump as much as possible.
In this context, a video being mean to your staff once is less of a dealbreaker than it previously might have been. Democratic voters are increasingly fine if you step on a few toes, as long as you’ll stand up to Trump.
Have you seen this?
Apprentice II. Oh brother. Amazon is reportedly considering a reboot of President Donald Trump’s former reality show The Apprentice and getting his son Donald Trump, Jr., to host. What if we brought back The Simple Life instead? [Whig by Hunter Schwarz]
How Amy Sherald referenced her own work at the Met Gala. Attendees at the Monday gala dressed up like works of art for the theme “Fashion is Art,” and Sherald dressed up like her own work. Sherald wore a custom Thom Browne dress with white studded dots on one side and a red fascinator to pay homage to the outfit worn by the model she painted in 2014’s “Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance),” which is in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery collection. “I’m going to give all the credit to Amy, really, because this is her vision,” Browne told Vanity Fair. “It’s referencing, I think, one of her best and most important paintings to herself.”
LGBTQ+ candidates face increased threats, study finds. Nearly 9 in 10 candidates worried that running openly as an LGBTQ+ person would increase their risk of harassment or attack — and for most, those fears were quickly confirmed. About two-thirds encountered in-person harassment during their campaigns, while nearly 8 in 10 faced it online. One in seven experienced them in person. [Campaigns & Elections]
We’re all on Truth Social now. As a business, Donald Trump’s personal social network is insignificant. But it’s a potent tool for capturing the world’s attention. [Fast Company]
