President Donald Trump threatened the Washington commanding football team, declaring that he would not facilitate the new team stadium in Washington, DC, if he does not come back to his former name.
“My declaration on the reskins of Washington has completely exploded, but only in a very positive way. I can put a restriction in it only if they do not change the name in Washington Redskins ”, and I will get rid of the ridiculous nickname,” wrote Trump on his social media platform on Sunday.
Washington commanding jerseys are displayed during an event to unveil the new identity of the NFL football team on February 2, 2022, MD.
Patrick SEMANSKY / AP
In another article on Sunday, Trump called commanders to “immediately” change their name.
“Their heritage and prestige are systematically removed from them. Times are different now that they were three or four years ago,” wrote Trump on his social media platform.
ABC News contacted the commanders to comment on Trump’s requests.
Trump also said that the Cleveland Guardians baseball team is expected to return to its former name, and called the Ohio Senate candidate Matt Dolan, the team owner, saying that he had lost several elections due to the change of name.
“The owner of the Cleveland baseball team Matt Dolan, who is very political, has lost three consecutive elections because of this ridiculous name change. What he does not understand is that if he has changed the name of the Cleveland Indians, he could actually gain an election.” Trump wrote on Sunday.
According to the name of the team The Associated Press.
“We understand that there are different prospects on the decision we made a few years ago, but this is obviously a decision that we have made. We have the opportunity to build a brand as Guardians in the past four years and we are delighted with the future before us,” said Antonetti.
The Guardians had no additional comments when asked by ABC News.
With the commanders, Josh Harris, team manager of the team, said earlier this year that the team would not change his name, according to the Associated Press.
The Association on American Indian Affairs said in a statement to ABC News that Trump’s remarks on Sunday are a “distraction of the real evil that this administration continues to inflict on indigenous peoples” and that there is “no real respect for the indigenous nations here – only empty gestures and political theater”.
“The idea that the indigenous nations largely support the use of these names and mascots is false. Hundreds, even thousands of native nations, native organizations, researchers and young leaders, have expressed on several occasions that the names and mascots” on the theme “Indigenous and dehumanized”, said the association in a press release on Monday.
The association continued by saying that these mascots and names – as the old name for commanders – “reduce us to caricatures”.
THE Washington Commanders Abandoned his old name in July 2020 after years of complaints on his racist connotations towards the Amerindians. The team adopted the credits “Washington Football Team” two weeks later, although it was only supposed to be in place for the 2020-21 season. Then in 2022, the team revealed that its new name would be the commanders of Washington.
A 2020 study From the University of Michigan and the University of California, Berkeley noted that at least half of more than 1,000 Amerindians interviewed were offended by the name of the previous teams.
In 2024, the Senate adopted a bipartite With unanimous consent which would allow the federal government to rent more than 170 acres of land on the site where the commemorative stadium Robert F. Kennedy is currently located, which would allow the possibility of a new stadium. The team is currently playing the Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland.
The bill transfers the jurisdiction of the site of the Federal Government Stadium to the local authorities of DC.
“We are extremely grateful that our elected officials gathered on a bipartite basis to give Washington, DC, the possibility of deciding on the future of the RFK stadium site. This bill will create an equal playground so that all future potential locations for the house of the best experience of our fans,” Harris, told our franchise the best experience for all fans on a franchise in a franchise statement December 21, 2024.
Lauren Peller, ABC News, Mark Osborne and Deena Zaru contributed to this report.
