07/20/25
Trump threatens to hold up stadium deal if Washington Commanders donât switch back to Redskins
CLEVELAND (AP) â President Donald Trump is threatening to hold up a new stadium deal for Washingtonâs NFL team if it does not restore its old name of the Redskins, which was considered
offensive to Native Americans.
Trump also said Sunday that he wants Clevelandâs baseball team to revert to its former name, the Indians, saying there was a âbig clamoring for thisâ as well.
The Washington Commanders and Cleveland Guardians have had their current names since the 2022 seasons and both have said they have no plans to change them back.
Trump said the Washington football team would be âmuch more valuableâ if it restored its old name.
âI may put a restriction on them that if they donât change the name back to the original âWashington Redskins,â and get rid of the ridiculous moniker, âWashington Commanders,â I wonât make a deal for them to build a Stadium in Washington,â Trump said on his social media site.
His latest interest in changing the name reflects his broader effort to roll back changes that followed a national debate on cultural sensitivity and racial justice. The team
announced it would drop the Redskins name and the Indian head logo in 2020 during a broader reckoning with systemic racism and police brutality
The Commanders and the District of Columbia government
announced a deal earlier this year to build a new home for the football team at the site the old RFK Stadium, the place the franchise called home for more than three decades.
Trumpâs ability to hold up the deal remains to be seen.
President Joe Biden signed a bill in January that transferred the land from the federal government to the District of Columbia.
The provision was part of a short-term spending bill passed by Congress in December. While D.C. residents elect a mayor, a city council and commissioners to run day-to-day operations, Congress maintains control of the cityâs budget.
Josh Harris, whose group bought the Commanders from former owner Dan Snyder in 2023,
said earlier this year the name was here to stay. Not long after taking over, Harris quieted speculation about going back to Redskins, saying that would not happen. The team did not immediately respond to a request for comment following Trumpâs statement.
The Washington team started in Boston as the Redskins in 1933 before moving to the nationâs capital four years later.
The Cleveland Guardiansâ president of baseball operations, Chris Antonetti, indicated before Sundayâs game against the Athletics that there werenât any plans to revisit the name change.
âWe understand there are different perspectives on the decision we made a few years ago, but obviously itâs a decision we made. Weâve got the opportunity to build a brand as the Guardians over the last four years and are excited about the future thatâs in front of us,â he said.
Cleveland announced in December 2020 it would drop Indians. It announced
the switch to Guardians in July 2021. In 2018, the team phased out âChief Wahooâ as its primary logo.
The name changes had their share of supporters and critics as part of the national discussions about logos and names considered racist.
Trump posted Sunday afternoon that âThe Owner of the Cleveland Baseball Team, Matt Dolan, who is very political, has lost three Elections in a row because of that ridiculous name change. What he doesnât understand is that if he changed the name back to the Cleveland Indians, he might actually win an Election. Indians are being treated very unfairly. MAKE INDIANS GREAT AGAIN (MIGA)!â
Matt Dolan, the son of the late Larry Dolan, no longer has a role with the Guardians. He ran the teamâs charity endeavors until 2016.
Matt Dolan was a candidate in the Ohio U.S. Senate elections in 2022 and â24, but lost.
Washington and Cleveland share another thing in common. David Blitzer is a member of Harrisâ ownership group with the Commanders and holds a minority stake in the Guardians.
As Commander fan myself, they are not going back to the old name and old logo. White folks only doing this cuz white people didn't get together as a collective and decide to stop being racist and agree on a new name like they did with the Cleveland Indians and other offensive team names and mascots.
