White House says Trump serious about wanting Commanders to revert to old name deemed offensive

A day after Donald Trump threatened to hold up a deal for a new football stadium in the nation's capital if the Washington Commanders did not go back to the name Redskins, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president's comments were not a joke.

"The president was serious," Leavitt told reporters Monday while answering questions on the White House driveway. "Sports is one of the many passions of this president and he wants to see the name of that team changed."

Asked why he's getting involved, Leavitt called Trump a "non-traditional president" and said sports fans are behind him on this.

"I think you've seen the president gets involved in a lot of things that most presidents have not," Leavitt said. "He's a non-traditional president. He likes to see results on behalf of the American people and, if you actually poll this issue with sports fans across the country, and even in this city, people actually do support the president's position on this and the name change."

After Congress passed a bill late last year to transfer land from the federal government to the District of Columbia, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and the team reached an agreement in April to build on the site of the old RFK Stadium. That is still pending approval by the Council of the District of Columbia.

"I think the thing that we should focus on in D.C. is doing our part," Bowser said. "I have worked for the better part of 10 years to get our part completed, including getting control of the land, coming to an agreement with the team and advancing a fantastic agreement to the council, so we need to do our part."

Dan Snyder, who had said multiple times as owner since 1999 he would never change the name, did so in July 2020 after facing