He’s not letting that one go.
Back in 2020, the NFL franchise known as the Washington Redskins caved to public pressure and retired the “Redskins” name, opting to switch to the creatively coined “Washington Football Team.” (The name change came largely as a result of investors putting pressure on sponsors of the team and not from actual Native American groups, some of whom even defended the name of the Redskins and have supported changing it back).
The original name that the team had gone by from 1937 to 2020 had long been criticized for its potentially controversial nature, and when all of the other “canceling” went down back in 2020, the Redskins went along with it. Then after two years as a generically named team, the football team in the nationals capital changed their name to the Commanders, which has stuck ever since.
Though it’s been a number of years since the cancellation and introduction to the replacement “Football Team” and “Commanders” monikers, there are still mixed feelings about the name change and calls to bring back the original name.
In fact, one of the most vocal proponents of bringing back the Washington Redskins is the President of the United States.
Over the summer, President Donald Trump was asked about the name change, and he made clear where he stood on the name:
“I wouldn’t have changed the name, but that’s their … it just doesn’t have the same. It doesn’t have the same ring to me, but you know winning could 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 president also threatened to block a proposal for a new stadium for the Commanders unless they changed their name back to the Washington Redskins, though the new venue was ultimately approved.
He still hasn’t given up though.
This afternoon, President Trump joined Pat McAfee and the boys for a special Veteran’s Day edition of The Pat McAfee Show live from Parris Island, South Carolina, home of Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island.
And during a wide-ranging conversation which touched on everything from the VA to fixing NIL and Trump’s hatred for the new NFL kickoff rules, the president had McAfee cracking up as he once again railed against the name change for the Commanders while discussing his experience at the game this past weekend:
“It was a little bit of a blowout game, in all fairness, with the Commanders, as opposed to the Redskins. What happened to the Redskins, by the way?”
What a time to be alive. You’ve got the Commander in Chief of the greatest country on earth calling in to the biggest sports talk show in the country to not just push his own agenda, but to actually talk sports…and complain about a team changing its name.
I’m sure there will be plenty of people upset at McAfee for having Trump on (he clarified that he also reached out to Obama to invite him on after he found out Trump would be joining the show – I wonder why he didn’t reach out to the most recent Democrat president, Joe Biden…), but you’ve gotta admit, that was some great content. And as Pat pointed out, when you have the opportunity to have the President of the United States on your show, on Veteran’s Day, in front of a crowd of Marines, that’s not something you pass up no matter what your political views may be.
