“The Washington ‘Whatever’s’ should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team,” President Donald Trump wrote Sunday, referring to the Washington Commanders NFL football team, which changed its name from the “Redskins” in 2020.
“Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them,” Trump wrote on the platform Truth Social. “Times are different now than they were three or four years ago. We are a Country of passion and common sense. OWNERS, GET IT DONE!!!”
The Redskins’ name, logo, and team song were all changed in 2020, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter riots.
On Monday, Trump went a step further, threatening to tank the Commanders’ new Washington, D.C., stadium deal if owners didn’t play ball on restoring the Redskins name.
“My statement on the Washington [Redskins] has totally blown up, but only in a very positive way,” he wrote.
“I may put a restriction on them that 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.”
The Washington Commanders are currently planning on moving their home to a new stadium on the site of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in Washington, D.C., pending approval from the D.C. Council. They currently play their home games in suburban Maryland.
Since 2024, Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., has pressured the Washington Commanders to revive their old logo, which was designed by Montanan Walter “Blackie” Wetzel, a member of the Blackfeet tribe.
Daines claims credit for having pressured the team and the National Football League to highlight the team’s old Native American imagery in social media posts—in exchange for his cooperation on the bill allowing the team to move to the site of RFK Stadium, which would be replaced with a new one.
Daines told The Daily Signal that he would continue with this effort as Trump pushed for a name change.
“I’ve been working hard on behalf of the Wetzel family and the Blackfeet tribe to get the logo back in a place of prominence. I’d love to see the logo back on the helmets, but right now, we’re working with the team to put on some throwback uniforms, some throwback games with the logo,” he told The Daily Signal.
He added, “The president’s working on the name change. I’m working on the logo change.”
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser does not have much to say about Trump’s demand.
“Listen, I don’t think that’s an eventuality we have to plan for,” Bowser said in a recent interview when asked about Trump’s ultimatum. “What we have to do as a city is do our part. And so our part is, we’ve come up with a great deal, we have a great plan, we’ve done the community outreach. Now is time for the [D.C. Council] to approve it.”
Oddly enough, the RFK stadium deal may have contributed to the Redskins changing their name in the first place.
In 2020, Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District’s nonvoting congressional delegate, warned the team’s then-owner Dan Snyder that keeping the Redskins name could jeopardize approval of a move back to Washington.
“I call on Dan Snyder once again to face that reality, since he does still desperately want to be in the nation’s capital,” Norton said at the time. “He has got a problem he can’t get around—and he particularly can’t get around it today, after the George Floyd killing.”
