Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime has a way of testing everyone’s patience. Think about tough plays, the parade of commercials, and Al Michaels occasionally wrestling with a player’s name or even arriving on screen with an undone shirt button. That’s exactly what took place during the Cleveland Browns versus New England Patriots preseason game. But to be honest, this isn’t about any of that.

After all, veteran play-by-play announcer Al Michaels slipped a political joke while on air, drawing attention almost immediately because the punchline referenced President Donald Trump.

“That is Lake Erie. We think it is still called Lake Erie. We’re not quite sure at this point,” Michaels said, via Awful Announcing on X. “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.”

He mentioned the joke while coming back from a commercial with a sweeping view of Cleveland. Michaels dropped his commentary on Trump’s executive order renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America alongside his broadcast partner Kirk Herbstreit.

Herbstreit, usually careful to steer clear of political minefields, suddenly found himself caught in one and had no words to offer. He did not lean into Michaels’ joke on air and just mumbled “some of us do”, and the broadcast moved on shortly afterward.

Michaels ended his joke with a simple instruction: “Read the news.”

Well, Michaels has been calling NFL games since the 70s. He has seen just about everything that can happen inside a broadcast booth. And so, on Thursday night, he made sure audiences watching the New England Patriots and Cleveland Browns preseason game on Amazon Prime Video experienced something similar.

And it surely left people surprised. After all, Michaels is not known for inserting politics into his broadcasts.

Not everyone was impressed by the joke

President Donald Trump had signed an executive order on August 27 directing the Interior Department to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America, adding another layer to the already tense trade fight between the U.S. and Canada.

The decision quickly drew attention on both sides of the border, making it an easy target for Michaels during a broadcast that same night. But Michaels’ joke didn’t sit well with some.

OutKick was far less impressed, saying Michaels seemed to be “auditioning for late-night television” and describing it as “boomer-broadcaster energy” that “landed with the force of a wet paper towel.”

Others thought the remark was a refreshing change of pace and pointed out that Michaels has never been afraid to slip in a timely observation during a broadcast.

Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit are Amazon Prime Video’s lead Thursday Night Football crew. Michaels returned for the 2026 season after Amazon confirmed his continued role earlier this year. The 81-year-old has said he still feels good about his work and plans to keep going on a year-to-year basis.

“First of all, I feel great,” Michaels said in January. “Everyone at Amazon has been fantastic, and I love working with this group. I’ve been looking at this year one year at a time, and as long as I feel I’m at the top of my game, I’d like to continue.”

What the Lake America executive order actually says and the reaction it sparked

Trump signed the executive order in the Oval Office, surrounded by large maps of the Great Lakes, one of them labeled “Making the Great Lakes Even Greater” with a Lake America label over Lake Ontario. He was direct about what he wanted.

“We’re going to be changing the name of Lake Ontario, effective immediately, to Lake America. That’s going to take place right now,” Trump said in the Oval Office.

This isn’t Trump’s first attempt at changing a familiar place name. His administration previously pushed the federal government to use “Gulf of America” instead of the Gulf of Mexico.

Vivek Ramaswamy, a former Ohio gubernatorial candidate, even floated the idea of calling Lake Erie “Lake Ohio” at a GOP fundraiser near Toledo, pointing to Trump’s Gulf of America move as an example.

“We have a gulf, and we have a lake,” Trump said. “Now, all we need is an ocean. So, maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific. Maybe we’ll change them both.”

Lake Ontario is shared by the U.S. and Canada, sitting between New York and Ontario. Canadian leaders pushed back hard and fast. Ontario Premier Doug Ford posted his response within minutes of the signing.

“It’s Lake Ontario to Canadians and the rest of the world. Now and forever,” Ford said.

With the news still fresh, Michaels’ quick jab did not stay on the broadcast for long. The clip soon made its way across social media, giving the veteran announcer one more memorable moment from the night.