A view of the Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Stadium, defunct and presently below demolition, in Washington, D.C., on April 28, 2025. President Trump is threatening to intervene in a deal for a brand new stadium.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP through Getty Photos
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Brendan Smialowski/AFP through Getty Photos
President Trump is threatening to derail a plan to construct a brand new stadium in Washington, D.C., for the Washington Commanders soccer workforce except the workforce adjustments its title again to the earlier title.
“The Washington ‘No matter’s’ ought to instantly change their title again to the Washington Redskins Soccer Group,” Trump wrote on his Reality Social account. “There’s a huge clamoring for this.”
The soccer workforce dropped the longtime title in 2020 after a few years of criticism that it was racist towards Indigenous folks.
Trump additionally known as for the Cleveland Guardians baseball workforce to alter their title again to the Cleveland Indians. That title change was introduced in 2021.
“Our nice Indian folks, in large numbers, need this to occur,” Trump wrote, with out providing proof. “Our nice Indian folks, in large numbers, need this to occur. Their heritage and status is systematically being taken away from them.”
Suzan Harjo, a member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes who fought for many years to get the workforce’s title modified, advised NPR in 2022 that the “R-word” was related to racist attitudes that perpetuated “emotional and bodily violence” towards Native Individuals. “Once I was a woman, you barely may make it by your younger life with out getting attacked by a bunch of white folks — whether or not they had been boys or ladies or males or girls. And they’d all the time go to that phrase,” she stated.
In a later submit, Trump threatened to scuttle the Commanders’ plans for a brand new stadium, which might transfer the workforce from its present location in Maryland again to the nation’s capital after renovating an antiquated stadium on federal property.
“I could put a restriction on them if they do not change the title again to the unique ‘Washington Redskins,’ and eliminate the ridiculous moniker, ‘Washington Commanders,’ I will not make a deal for them to construct a stadium in Washington,” Trump wrote.
Congress gave town management over the positioning of the proposed new stadium final December, which former President Joe Biden signed into legislation in January. The D.C. Council is now contemplating a multibillion-dollar plan to redevelop the property for the workforce. It is unclear how Trump may intervene with the mission.
Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s workplace stated in an electronic mail that the mayor had no remark. The Commanders and the Cleveland Guardians didn’t instantly reply to NPR’s request for remark.
