From the State of the Union speech:

“… Then there’s my favorite example: the Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they’re in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them in when they’re in saltwater. And I hear it gets even more complicated once they’re smoked.”

There is nothing complicated about smoked salmon, as a processed food it is under the Food and Drug Administration of the Department of Health and Human Services. The fact that it is food should have been a clue.

Of course, the fact that fresh water is found within the country, while saltwater makes up the coastal waters should have been clues, but there is no requirement that any of the 536 people [545 if you include the Supreme Court] primarily responsible for the operation of the government of the United States have to be literate, or even of normal intelligence.

Update from comments: Salmon are under the supervision of the National Marine Fisheries Service (an agency in the Department of Commerce), no matter what the water tastes like. The Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of the Interior has no involvement.

That paragraph began with:

“We live and do business in the information age, but the last major reorganization of the government happened in the age of black and white TV.”

Sorry, but since 1965 [color television broadcasts began in 1953] 6 new Cabinet-level Departments have been added, and one of the original Departments, the Post Office, has become a quasi-independent agency, the Postal Service. An increase of 50% is usually considered major.

January 27, 1967

Virgil “Gus” Ivan Grissom, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

Edward Higgins White, II, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

Roger Bruce Chaffee, Lieutenant Commander, USN