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Some people in the public eye simply can't help themselves.
Such is the case with veteran NFL play-by-play commentator Al Michaels, who took a moment to mock the president on Thursday night.
'We think it is still called Lake Erie.'
Michaels was commentating for the Cleveland Browns vs. New England Patriots game on "Thursday Night Football," a preseason broadcast for Amazon Prime, when he made a brief comment that ruffled some feathers.
Less than four minutes into the game, the broadcast was showing off the Cleveland skyline before a kickoff when Michaels commented on President Trump's recent name change of Lake Ontario to Lake America.
"That is Lake Erie. We think it is still called Lake Erie," Michaels remarked.
"We're not quite sure at this point. But we'll be by Lake 'Something Like Ontario' or whatever it's going to be called by the time we get to Buffalo. Anyway, you know what I'm talking about," Michaels chuckled.
"Some of us do," replied co-commentator Kirk Herbstreit.
"Right! Read the news," Michaels concluded.
Fans seemed split on whether the remarks were necessary, with some getting in on the trolling nature of the name change.
"It’s Lake America, losers. Get it right," one viewer wrote on X.
Another compared the 81-year-old broadcaster to President Joe Biden: "Al Michaels is only one step ahead of Joe Biden in the brain department."
Others supported the veteran NFL voice, writing comments like, "Al Michaels comeback season. Top of his game!" and "Love it! Al Michaels calls it as he sees it."
Some comments were more in the middle, with one X user quoting a post of the video to claim, "God I love broadcasting. You can say whatever you want!"
While Michaels is known for cracking jokes, he does not have a history of going rogue with political opinions.
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Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
His most notable foray into such topics was during the kneeling fiasco of 2017 where Michaels, along with broadcasters Cris Collinsworth and Mike Tirico, began NBC's "Football Night in America" broadcast with a discussion about Trump's remarks on the subject, which included saying kneeling players should be fired.
"Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He's fired. He's fired,'" Trump said at the time.
Michaels said that through his remarks, Trump had "galvanized" the league.
"People were beginning to listen to each other. It was calming down a little bit, and then a match got thrown into the gas tank," Michaels claimed. "It’s inadvertently created a new level of unity."
The Browns won on Thursday, 37-13.
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