Wisconsin Republican Tom Tiffany says he and the pilot swam from a sinking Bonanza after an emergency water landing in Lake Wausau Saturday night.
Page A3From§Eachthe sunrise edition — 13 September 2026
Wisconsin Republicans joke about renaming a lake, then their candidate crash-lands his plane into one
As it ran on the front
On August 28, the White House renamed Lake Ontario "Lake America," and Wisconsin Republicans turned it into a punchline. Gubernatorial nominee Tom Tiffany told the Washington Examiner the only Great Lake he wanted renamed was Lake Michigan, into "Lake Wisconsin." The Hill ran the same day's quotes from Wisconsin politicians riffing on the order, the whole exchange filed as color — a joke about geography that cost nothing to make.
Five days later, on September 2, the plane carrying Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin lost its right engine over the Potomac. "We just lost our right engine, would like to declare an emergency," the pilot told the tower, in audio The Hill, the Washington Examiner, and the New York Post all ran that week. The Coast Guard jet made it down at Reagan National. The man who runs the department is who was aboard when an engine quit at altitude.…
…(cont) Ten days after that — Saturday night, September 12 — Tiffany's Bonanza went down in Lake Wausau. He and the pilot swam clear of the sinking plane. CBS filed it as a Wisconsin congressman's minor injury; Fox filed it as the gubernatorial candidate's near-miss. Tiffany thanked the pilot and the first responders, grateful, he said, for how little damage he'd taken — fifteen days, almost to the day, after he'd stood in front of reporters and waved off a president's lake joke as not worth the ink.
The lake found him anyway.
What's on the record now is two emergency landings inside fifteen days, both involving Republican officials, and exactly one stated cause between them: an engine, lost, confirmed by a control tower. Tiffany's cause isn't in the wires yet. What is in the wires is the sequence — the joke about renaming a lake, and a Republican candidate's plane going into one, in that order, filed by four separate outlets that never had to reach for the ending.
Renaming a lake was supposed to be the story that made a president look silly. Instead the lake is still there, under its old name, and it's the party that mocked the renaming that ended up wet.
“They laughed off a president's lake stunt like it was beneath them, and ten days after Homeland Security's own plane lost an engine over the Potomac, their candidate is swimming out of a sinking plane in an actual Wisconsin lake. Two emergency landings in ten days, both wearing the same party's name tag. You start counting like that and you stop calling it a coincidence.”
“Look, planes have mechanical issues, that's just — that's aviation, you can't politicize an engine. Tom Tiffany walked away, the pilot walked away, this is a story about a good outcome, frankly, a real credit to swimming lessons. Why does the left even bring up the Homeland Security Secretary's engine, that's a totally separate incident — did I just connect those? Forget I connected those.”
The receipts
The congressman thanked the pilot and first responders for coming to their aid, and expressed his gratitude at only having sustained minor injuries.
· Wisconsin GOP governor hopeful Tom Tiffany dismisses Trump’s Lake America renaming from the morgue, 28 Aug 2026
· Wisconsin politicians joke about Lake Michigan name change from the morgue, 28 Aug 2026
· Mullin's airplane made emergency landing after engine failure from the morgue, 2 Sep 2026
· Coast Guard jet carrying Markwayne Mullin makes emergency landing from the morgue, 2 Sep 2026
· Plane carrying DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin makes emergency landing after engine failure from the morgue, 2 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.