President Donald Trump wants the NFL’s Washington Commanders and MLB’s Cleveland Guardians to revert to their previous team names.
“The Washington ‘Whatever’s’ should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team. There is a big clamoring for this,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Sunday. “Likewise, the Cleveland Indians, one of the six original baseball teams, with a storied past. Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them.”
Trump also told the team owners to “GET IT DONE!!!”
Later, Trump posted that if Washington did not change its name back to Redskins, “I won’t make a deal for them to build a stadium in Washington. The Team would be much more valuable, and the Deal would be exciting for everyone.”
Trump added that Guardians owner “Matt Dolan, who is very political, has lost three Elections in a row because of that ridiculous name change.”
Matt Dolan’s brother, Paul, is the primary owner and CEO of the Guardians. Matt Dolan, who has a partial stake in the team, has served in the Ohio State Senate and House of Representatives as a Republican. He ran for the United States Senate seat from Ohio in the 2022 and 2024 elections but lost in the Republican primary both times.
Cleveland Guardians team president Chris Antonetti said the club is focused on its future rather than talk of its past nickname.
“Not something I’m tracking or paying a lot of attention to, but I would say generally, I understand there are very different perspectives on the decision we made a few years ago,” Antonetti said Sunday when asked about Trump’s post. “But it’s a decision we made and we’ve gotten the opportunity to build the brand as the Guardians over the last four years and we’re excited about the future that’s in front of us.”
The Commanders did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s post.
The team and the city of Washington, D.C. reached an agreement in April to build a new 65,000-seat football stadium on the RFK Stadium site in Northeast Washington to open in 2030. Many fans have longed for the team to return to the site since it left for Landover, Md., in 1997 to play in Northwest Stadium.
The city touted the Commanders’ $2.7 billion plan as the largest private investment in a city project in Washington’s history. The total taxpayer investment in the project will exceed $1.1 billion through 2032.
The deal requires approval from the D.C. city council, and at the time of the stadium agreement, the Commanders set a July 15 deadline for the council to vote, allowing Washington to exclusively negotiate with the team. However, the council’s vote has been delayed, and with the deadline passed, the team is allowed to look for other locations.
Both the Commanders and the Guardians began exploring name changes in 2020, in the wake of widespread protests over racial injustice that occurred around the United States following the death of George Floyd.
At the time, Trump opposed the idea and said on Twitter that the franchises were considering changing their names to be politically correct. Retailers and corporations, including Walmart, Target, Nike and FedEx, which then owned Washington’s stadium naming rights, urged the NFL team to change its name from the Redskins, which had been decried as a racist slur. Some companies even pulled merchandise with the team name off their shelves.
Loud factions of Washington’s fan base, particularly those around for the Super Bowl-winning era starting in 1982, criticized the team’s decision to drop the former nickname. The team came up with a temporary stopgap, calling itself the Washington Football Team for two seasons.
Following a nearly two-year rebranding process, Washington landed on Commanders ahead of the 2022 season. The name wasn’t a hit, but more people inside and outside team headquarters began embracing the nickname when Washington went 12-5 last season and won two playoff games on the road before losing at Philadelphia in the NFC championship.
Team owner Josh Harris said in February that the polarizing nickname would remain in place.
“I think it’s now being embraced by our team, by our culture, by our coaching staff,” Harris said. “So, we’re going with that.”
In Cleveland, the club decided to explore name change possibilities in July 2020. That winter, team owner Paul Dolan said the decision came after months of “discussions with fans, business leaders, players, social activists and researchers focused on Native American culture and issues” that led him to realize the name was no longer acceptable.
Cleveland did not adopt an interim name like Washington did in 2020, and continued to play as the Indians in 2021.
The franchise was a charter member of the American League, one of eight teams to break ground with the new league in 1901. The team initially went by the Bluebirds (often shortened to Blues), then the Broncos and then the Naps before switching to the Indians in 1915.
In 2019, Cleveland dropped its Chief Wahoo logo, which had been the subject of annual Opening Day protests outside the ballpark. The club replaced the logo with a guitar-themed All-Star Game patch on its uniforms, a nod to the fact it hosted that season’s All-Star Game and that the city is the site of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
In July 2021, the club announced its new nickname, the Guardians, which was inspired by a pair of stone sculptures, known as the Guardians of Traffic, along the Hope Memorial Bridge near the ballpark. The team also debuted a “Diamond C” logo on players’ caps to go with the new name.
Over the years, Trump has often voiced his opinion about divisive issues in the sports world. In 2017, he urged NFL owners to fire players who protested racial injustice and police brutality by not standing for the national anthem. His administration has targeted universities across the country for allowing transgender athletes to compete, saying they are violating Title IX. He has reportedly been considering issuing an executive order regarding college athletics for months.
Trump appears to be well aware of the symbolic power of sports. This year, he became the first sitting U.S. president to attend the Super Bowl. This month, he said that a UFC fight would be held on the grounds of the White House next year as part of the country’s 250th birthday celebration.
(Photo: Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)