Trump speaks out against sports teams abandoning Native American names

Billy Dieckman of the Native American Guardians Association and attorney Chad Laveglia discuss a lawsuit filed against the Washington Commanders for allegedly suppressing Native American references by removing the 'Redskins' name.

President Donald Trump addressed the wave of sports teams that underwent name changes in recent years to remove references to Native American heritage. 

Trump called the name changes "degrading to the Indian population." 

"I think it's degrading to the Indian population, and it's a great population, and they like when they're called by various names," Trump said. 

Trump declined to say whether he would try to get the Washington Commanders to change their name back to Redskins as a condition for building a new stadium on federal property. However, Trump did say he believes Redskins was better than the team's current name. 

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"I can tell you that I spoke to people of Indian heritage who love that name and love that team, and I think it's a much superior name to what they have right now and it had heritage behind it, it had something special," Trump said. 

The Washington Post released a poll in June that found that 58% of fans of Commanders fans said they do not like the team's new name.

Trump also lambasted the decision to rename MLB's Cleveland Indians to the Guardians after the end of the 2021 season. 

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"They changed the name of the Cleveland Indians. Why would you take the name ‘Indians’ off the Cleveland Indians? And now it's called the Cleveland something else," Trump said. "So it just doesn't make sense to me.

"I think it