Donald Trump has thrown his support behind the Washington Commanders reverting back to their problematic name the Redskins.
Talking to reporters in New Jersey on Sunday, the president was asked whether the team should change its name back to the Redskins. “Well, you want me to make a controversial statement? I would,” he replied. “I wouldn’t have changed the name. It just doesn’t have the same... it doesn’t have the same ring to me.”
However Trump made clear he was fine with the politically correct new name if the team were successful.
He added, “But, you know, winning can make everything sound good. So if they win, all of a sudden the Commanders sounds good, but I wouldn’t have changed the name.”
The team was known as the Washington Redskins from 1937, but the divisive name was receiving criticism from Native American groups as far back as the 1960s.
However in 2020, in the wake of protests over the death of George Floyd, the team came under pressure to change their name logo, first going with Washington Football Team before settling on Commanders.
Major sponsors including Nike, FedEx and PepsiCo were urged by investors and shareholders to pull their sponsorship unless the team dumped the Redskins name.
At the time, Carla Fredericks, director of First Peoples Worldwide, said “Indigenous peoples were sort of left out of the civil rights movement in the late 1960s in many respects, because our conditions were so dire on reservations and our ability to engage publicly was very limited because of that. With social media now, obviously everything is very different.”
In April, Trump weighed in on the Redskins name change, saying he had spoken to Indians who had a problem with the rebrand.
“The Indians don’t know why these names are being taken off,“ Trump said.
“I think it’s degrading to the Indian population and it’s a great population. Washington... the Redskins... perhaps that’s a little different, but I can tell you that I spoke to people of Indian heritage that loved that name and they love that team.”
He added, “I think it’s a superior name to what they have now and it had heritage behind it, it had something special.”
