WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after Donald Trump threatened to hold up a deal for a new football stadium in the nation’s capital if the Washington Commanders did not go back to the name Redskins, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president’s comments were not a joke.
“The president was serious,” Leavitt told reporters Monday while answering questions on the White House driveway. “Sports is one of the many passions of this president and he wants to see the name of that team changed.”
Asked why he’s getting involved, Leavitt called Donald Trump a “nontraditional president” and said sports fans are behind him on this.
“I think you’ve seen the president gets involved in a lot of things that most presidents have not,” Leavitt said. “He’s a nontraditional president. He likes to see results on behalf of the American people and, if you actually poll this issue with sports fans across the country, and even in this city, people actually do support the president’s position on this and the name change.”
After Congress passed a bill late last year to transfer land from the federal government to the District of Columbia, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and the team reached an agreement in April to build on the site of the old RFK Stadium. That is still pending approval by the Council of the District of Columbia.
“I think the thing that we should focus on in D.C. is doing our part,” Bowser said. “I have worked for the better part of 10 years to get our part completed, including getting control of the land, coming to an agreement with the team and advancing a fantastic agreement to the council, so we need to do our part.”
Dan Snyder, who had said multiple times as owner since 1999 that he would never change the name, did so in July 2020 after facing mounting pressure from sponsors and critics. Washington Football Team was used for two seasons before Commanders was unveiled as the permanent name in early 2022.
Josh Harris, whose group bought the team from Snyder in 2023, said earlier this year the Commanders name was here to stay.
Savannah Romero, co-founder and deputy director of the Black Liberation-Indigenous Sovereignty Collective, said in a statement Monday responding to Trump that “Native Americans are not mascots.”
“To equate Native people with cartoonish mascots alongside animals is a gross and ongoing tactic of dehumanization,” said Romero, who is an enrolled member of the Eastern Shoshone Nation.
A spokesperson for the National Congress of American Indians said the organization was working on finalizing a statement.
At least one organization, the Native American Guardians Association, has filed petitions to bring back the Redskins and Cleveland Indians names.
A handful of fans who were asked by The Associated Press for their opinion generally dismissed Trump’s comments. Ender Tuncay, who grew up in the Washington area and returns to visit family, called it “typical Trump stupidity.”
“It’s just him focusing on things that aren’t consequential and trying to distract from the actual issues that are going on,” Tuncay said, adding he does not care what the name is. “But I’d like them to get the new stadium, for sure. I like this site where it is. My parents used to tell me stories of how great RFK was back when we were really, really good.”
Ford Flemmings, who worked as a vendor at the old RFK Stadium, said everyone is on the bandwagon with the name Commanders now that they are winning.
“I liked Washington when it was just plain Washington,” Flemmings said. “If they change their name, so be it. I’ll still be a Washington, whatever the Washington team is.”
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AP White House reporter Darlene Superville and video journalist River Zhang contributed.
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