Trump threatens to hold up stadium deal if Washington Commanders don’t switch back to old nickname

President Donald Trump threatened to interrupt a new stadium deal for Washington’s National Football League team demanding the owner restore its old name of the R-word, a dictionary defined slur.

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 “much more valuable” if it restored its old name.

“I may put a restriction on them that if they don’t change the name back to the original ‘Washington (R-word),’ and get rid of the ridiculous moniker, ‘Washington Commanders,’ I won’t make a deal for them to build a Stadium in Washington,” 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 R-word name and the Indian head logo in 2020 during a broader reckoning with systemic racism and police brutality.

Long-time activist, Suzan Harjo, Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee, fought to change the mascot for decades responded to Trump’s actions on Facebook. She was one of seven plaintiffs to first file a lawsuit against the Washington NFL team in 1992.

“He’s out of his closet campaign to revive the vile (R-word) and is now openly trying to pressure the NFL owners and the DC government to take a ginormous step back into bigotry,” she wrote. “This comes just as the Commanders are playing like champions, without carrying that burden of bad karma.”

“This is the White House adding insult to injuries already proposed and inflicted, using the historic whiteman’s tactic of ‘starving out the Indians,’” she continued writing. “Today’s version is slashing the federal budget’s programs and services that are guaranteed perpetually for the vast land we ceded and in which we retain ancestral rights … ”

The National Congress of American Indians, the oldest tribal political organization, also responded to the president’s threat.

“Any attempt to distract by invoking our names and purporting to speak for our communities is an affront to Tribal sovereignty and is not taken lightly,” said NCAI President Mark Macarro, Pechanga Band of Indians. “For 75 years, NCAI has held an unbroken voice: Imagery and fan behaviors that mock, demean, and dehumanize Native people have no place in modern society. NCAI will continue to stand in support of the dignity and humanity of Native peoples.”

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 of the old RFK Stadium, the place the franchise called home for more than three decades.

Trump’s 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 city’s 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 the R-word, saying that would not happen. The team did not immediately respond to a request for comment following Trump’s statement.

The Washington team started in Boston as the R-word in 1933 before moving to the nation’s capital four years later.

The Cleveland Guardians’ president of baseball operations, Chris Antonetti, indicated before Sunday’s game against the Athletics that there weren’t any plans to revisit the name change.

“We understand there are different perspectives on the decision we made a few years ago, but obviously it’s a decision we made. We’ve got the opportunity to build a brand as the Guardians over the last four years and are excited about the future that’s in front of us,” 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 “Chief Wahoo” 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 “The 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 doesn’t 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)!”

Matt Dolan, the son of the late Larry Dolan, no longer has a role with the Guardians. He ran the team’s charity endeavors until 2016.

Matt Dolan was a candidate in the Ohio U.S. Senate elections in 2022 and ’24, but lost.

Washington and Cleveland share another thing in common. David Blitzer is a member of Harris’ ownership group with the Commanders and holds a minority stake in the Guardians.

Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

This story has been updated with NCAI’s statement.

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