According to Fox News, the Florida House and Senate approved a bill to rename Palm Beach International Airport after President Donald Trump, a move that would make him the first sitting president to receive the honor. The name change would go into effect on July 1 if signed into law, pending finalization by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Federal Aviation Administration.

White House Communications Director Steven Cheung took to X to weigh in on the proposal, writing that it "has a GREAT ring to it."

The airport sits just minutes from Mar-a-Lago, making the renaming a natural fit. If finalized, Palm Beach International would become the ninth commercial U.S. airport named after a president.

A Tradition with Deep Roots

Naming airports after presidents is hardly new. What's striking is how routine the practice has been across party lines, which makes the "controversy" framing around this particular renaming worth examining.

The most famous example is New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. Weeks after Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, New York City officials voted in December to change the name from Idlewild Airport. The new name was formally unveiled on Christmas Eve 1963.

Here are the eight commercial airports already named after presidents:

• John F. Kennedy International Airport (New York) — renamed in December 1963
• George Bush Intercontinental Airport (Houston) — renamed in 1997, four years after George H.W. Bush left office
• Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (Washington, D.C.) — renamed in 1998, nearly a decade after Reagan left office, with legislation signed by President Bill Clinton
• Gerald R. Ford International Airport (Grand Rapids) — renamed in 1999, honoring the 38th president who represented the area in Congress for more than two decades
• Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport (Springfield) — renamed 2004, honoring the 16th president; the facility first opened in 1947
• Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport (Little Rock) — unveiled March 2012
• Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport (Wichita) — renamed in November 2014, honoring the 34th president
• Dickinson Theodore Roosevelt Regional Airport (Dickinson) — originally opened in 1959 as Dickinson Municipal Airport

Bill Clinton signed the law renaming Washington National Airport after Ronald Reagan. Arkansas named an airport after both Clintons. Nobody burned down the statehouse over it.

The Predictable Pushback

Some Florida Democrats pushed back against the renaming. The details of their objections remain thin, which is itself telling. When opposition to a proposal is more atmospheric than substantive, what you're witnessing isn't principled disagreement. It's reflexive resistance to anything that acknowledges this president's stature.

Consider the precedent. Reagan's airport was renamed nearly a decade after he left office. Bush's was renamed four years later. Clinton came well into retirement. Every one of those renamings passed without national hand-wringing. The only variable that changed is the president being honored.

The concern isn't really about airports or naming conventions. It's about the symbolism of a permanent, physical landmark bearing the name of a president the left has spent years trying to diminish. An airport terminal doesn't care about your political feelings. Millions of travelers will walk through those doors every year, and the name on the building will outlast every breathless cable news segment about "controversy."

What Comes Next

The bill now awaits Gov. DeSantis's signature and FAA finalization. Neither step appears to present a serious obstacle. Florida's legislature passed the measure through both chambers, and the governor has not indicated opposition.

If completed, the renaming accomplishes something none of the eight previous presidential airport namings did: it honors a president while he still holds office. That distinction will irritate all the right people.

Nine airports. Nine presidents spanning both parties, from Lincoln to Trump. The tradition is bipartisan. The outrage is not.