{"id":941,"date":"2025-07-21T15:48:55","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T15:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=941"},"modified":"2025-07-21T15:48:55","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T15:48:55","slug":"trump-threatens-to-restrict-stadium-deal-with-washington-commanders-if-they-dont-change-name-back-to-redskins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=941","title":{"rendered":"Trump threatens to restrict stadium deal with Washington Commanders if they don\u2019t change name back to \u2018Redskins\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

President\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0on Sunday escalated his call for the Washington Commanders to change their name back to the \u201cRedskins,\u201d threatening to restrict the NFL team\u2019s stadium deal if they don\u2019t, though it\u2019s unclear how he would be able to.<\/p>\n

\u201cI may put a restriction on them that if they don\u2019t change the name back to the original \u2018Washington Redskins,\u2019 and get rid of the ridiculous moniker, \u2018Washington Commanders,\u2019 I won\u2019t make a deal for them to build a Stadium in Washington. The Team would be much more valuable, and the Deal would be more exciting for everyone,\u201d Trump wrote on Truth Social.<\/p>\n

The organization left Washington for Landover, Maryland, in 1997, but DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and the team announced a deal in April to bring the Commanders back to the district at the site of the old Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium. Trump touted the deal at the time, but the proposal is stalled before the DC Council.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters<\/a>\u00a0last week, Bowser urged the DC Council to \u201cmake moves\u201d on the deal, adding that \u201cthe Commanders are anxious\u201d about it. The Council is holding the first of\u00a0public testimony<\/a> hearings on July 29 for the stadium redevelopment plan.<\/p>\n

Trump expressed openness earlier this month to helping out if the DC Council does not approve the deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great piece of property, so we\u2019ll see. But if I can help them out, I would. \u2026 The federal government ultimately controls it,\u201d Trump said. In late 2024,\u00a0lawmakers in Congress passed a bill<\/a>\u00a0to transfer ownership of the RFK site from the federal government to the district\u2019s government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe owner is very, very successful and a very good man,\u201d Trump continued. \u201cIt would be a great place for the NFL to be there, I can tell you that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier Sunday, the president initially referred to the football team as the \u201cWashington \u2018Whatever\u2019s\u2019\u201d and urged the owners to \u201cIMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team.\u201d<\/p>\n

CNN has reached out to the Commanders and the DC mayor\u2019s office for comment on Trump\u2019s posts.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s Sunday comments went further than ones he made earlier this month, when he told reporters the Commanders\u2019 name should be changed back to the Redskins, something he acknowledged was a \u201ccontroversial statement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t have the same ring to me,\u201d he said. \u201cBut, you know, winning can make everything sound good. So, if they win, all of a sudden, the Commanders sounds good, but I wouldn\u2019t have changed it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Commanders aren\u2019t the only team moniker Trump wants reverted.<\/p>\n

Trump also put the pressure on the Cleveland Guardians to change their name back to the \u201cIndians,\u201d claiming that the \u201cIndian people\u201d want the Guardians to be the \u201cIndians\u201d yet again.<\/p>\n

The names were changed as part of\u00a0a larger cultural shift<\/a> as corporate brands reexamined their use of racist caricatures and stereotypical names, but Trump argued Sunday that \u201ctimes are different now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them,\u201d Trump said. \u201cTimes are different now than they were three or four years ago. We are a Country of passion and common sense. OWNERS, GET IT DONE!!!\u201d<\/p>\n

And in a later post Sunday, Trump claimed Matt Dolan, a former Ohio state lawmaker whose family owns the Guardians, \u201chas lost three Elections in a row because of that ridiculous name change. What he doesn\u2019t understand is that if he changed the name back to the Cleveland Indians, he might actually win an Election.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matt Dolan\u2019s brother Paul Dolan is the principal owner and chairman of the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndians are being treated very unfairly. MAKE INDIANS GREAT AGAIN (MIGA)!\u201d Trump added, a riff on his \u201cMake America Great Again,\u201d or MAGA, slogan.<\/p>\n

The Cleveland Guardians said they had no further comment.<\/p>\n

The Washington football team dropped the \u201cRedskins\u201d name in 2020\u00a0after decades of criticism<\/a>\u00a0from Native American groups that said it was an ethnic slur and a derogatory reference to skin color. Two years later\u00a0it unveiled<\/a>\u00a0the \u201cCommanders\u201d name.<\/p>\n

The Cleveland baseball team announced its name change in 2021, after similar criticism from Native Americans over the \u201cIndians\u201d moniker.<\/p>\n

This story has been updated with additional information.<\/em><\/p>\n

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at\u00a0CNN.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0on Sunday escalated his call for the Washington Commanders to change their name back to the \u201cRedskins,\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=941"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":943,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/941\/revisions\/943"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}