President Trump is threatening to derail a plan to build a new stadium in Washington, D.C., for the Washington Commanders football team unless the team changes its name back to the previous name.
"The Washington 'Whatever's' should immediately change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team," Trump wrote on his Truth Social account. "There is a big clamoring for this."
The football team dropped the longtime name in 2020 after many years of criticism that it was racist toward Indigenous people.
Trump also called for the Cleveland Guardians baseball team to change their name back to the Cleveland Indians. That name change was announced in 2021.
"Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen," Trump wrote, without offering evidence. "Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them."
Suzan Harjo, a member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes who fought for decades to get the team's name changed, told NPR in 2022 that the "R-word" was connected to racist attitudes that perpetuated "emotional and physical violence" against Native Americans. "When I was a girl, you barely could make it through your young life without getting attacked by a bunch of white people — whether they were boys or girls or men or women. And they would always go to that word," she said.
In a later post, Trump threatened to scuttle the Commanders' plans for a new stadium, which would move the team from its current location in Maryland back to the nation's capital after renovating an antiquated stadium on federal property.
"I may put a restriction on them if they don't change the name back to the original 'Washington Redskins,' and get rid of the ridiculous moniker, 'Washington Commanders,' I won't make a deal for them to build a stadium in Washington," Trump wrote.
Congress gave the city control over the site of the proposed new stadium last December, which former President Joe Biden signed into law in January. The D.C. Council is now considering a multibillion-dollar plan to redevelop the property for the team. It's unclear how Trump could intervene with the project.
Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser's office said in an email that the mayor had no comment. The Commanders did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment. The Cleveland Guardians declined comment.
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