Donald Trump Threatens to Block Washington NFL Stadium Plan

Donald Trump claims he will block the Commanders' D.C. stadium deal if the franchise doesn't revert to its old name.
The Washington Commanders have agreed to a deal for a stadium in the District of Columbia, at the RFK Stadium site.
The Washington Commanders have agreed to a deal for a stadium in the District of Columbia, at the RFK Stadium site. / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

Donald Trump's targeting of Washington's football team continued on Sunday. The president took to Truth Social and threatened to block the Commanders' deal for a new stadium if the team didn't revert back to its old name.

Trump said the following (punctuation and grammatical errors are his):

"My statement on the Washington R------- has totally blown up, but only in a very positive way. I may put a restriction on them that if they don't change the name back to the original "Washington R-------," and get rid of the ridiculous moniker, "Washington Commanders," 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 more exciting for everyone. Cleveland should do the same with the Cleveland Indians. The Owner of the Cleveland Baseball Team, Matt Dolan, who is very political, has lost three Elections in a row because of that ridiculous name change. What he doesn't understand is that if he changed the name back to the Cleveland Indians, he might actually win an Election. Indians are being treated very unfairly. MAKE INDIANS GREAT AGAIN (MIGA)!"

In April, the Commanders agreed to a deal with the District of Columbia to build a new $4 billion stadium at the site of the old RFK Stadium. The new 65,000-seat space would be situated where the franchise played its games from 1961 to '96. Since that time, Washington has played its games in Landover, Maryland, at Northwest Stadium (formerly FedEx Field).

I'm sure this isn't the last we've heard from Trump on this matter.


More NFL on Sports Illustrated

feed


Published
Ryan Phillips
RYAN PHILLIPS

Ryan Phillips is a senior writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He has worked in digital media since 2009, spending eight years at The Big Lead before joining SI in 2024. Phillips also co-hosts The Assembly Call Podcast about Indiana Hoosiers basketball and previously worked at Bleacher Report. He is a proud San Diego native and a graduate of Indiana University’s journalism program.