Trump threatens to derail Washington Commanders’ new stadium deal over workforce title : NPR

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Brendan Smialowski/AFP through Getty Photographs President Trump is threatening to derail a plan to construct a brand new stadium in Washington, D.C., for the Washington Commanders soccer workforce until 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 Workforce," Trump wrote on his Fact Social account. "There's a large clamoring for this."

The soccer workforce dropped the longtime title in 2020 after a few years of criticism that it was racist towards Indigenous individuals.

Trump additionally known as for the Cleveland Guardians baseball workforce to vary their title again to the Cleveland Indians. That title change was introduced in 2021.

"Our nice Indian individuals, in large numbers, need this to occur," Trump wrote, with out providing proof. "Our nice Indian individuals, 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 might make it by your younger life with out getting attacked by a bunch of white individuals — whether or not they had been boys or women or males or girls. And they might at all times go to that phrase," she mentioned.

In a later publish, 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'll 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 location of the proposed new stadium final December, which former President Joe Biden signed into regulation 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 might intervene with the mission.

Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser's workplace mentioned in an e-mail that the mayor had no remark. The Commanders and the Cleveland Guardians didn't instantly reply to NPR's request for remark.