Trump Says He'll Take A 'Look' At Making American The Official Language—And People Have Jokes

In an executive order dated March 1, 2025, MAGA Republican President Donald Trump declared, without the authority to do so, that English would be the official language of the United States.

In a recent phoned in appearance on The Hugh Hewitt Show, Trump agreed to contemplate changing that order. Hewitt is a former Reagan administration official, president and CEO of the Richard Nixon Foundation, and right-wing talk radio personality.

Referring to an April opinion piece penned by Republican Rob Lockwood, who is a former senior adviser to Trump's Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Hewitt told Trump:

"...there was an essay in 'The Washington Post'—make American the official language of America, not English. I think you ought to look at that, because it’s a good idea."

Trump responded in the affirmative to the suggestion.

You can watch the moment here:

People across social media mocked both men for their ignorance.

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Lockwood's original Washington Post essay contended that for the semiquincentennial of the founding of the United States, Trump should rename the English language—which, like most languages, is named for the people, country, or region it originated in—American.

But that's not how languages work.

American English—like Canadian English, Australian English, and New Zealand English—is a specific dialect of the original, not its own separate language. Through the physical and cultural genocide of Indigenous populations, English became the primary language in each of these former British colonies, but none deviate enough from their common root to be considered a separate language.

To declare the English spoken in the United States is its own language would be as ignorant and arrogant as ignoring the fact the Americas already have their own unique languages.

Linguists estimate that over 300 distinct Indigenous languages were spoken in what is now the United States prior to European contact. As of 2026, between 150 to 175 of those languages have survived colonialism and genocide.

For the 23 independent countries and 22 dependent territories of North America, approximately 500 distinct languages existed. For all of the Americas, between 1,000 to 2,000 languages were spoken by Indigenous peoples prior to European contact.

Those languages are uniquely American.

American English is just English spoken in different time zones.