Resurfaced tweet has people calling out Trump's hypocrisy over 'racist' football team name

Donald Trump has been called out for “hypocrisy” over his demand that the Washington Commanders NFL team revert to their old name that included a racial slur.

The US president has threatened to block the deal that would see the building of a new football stadium in Washington D.C. unless local team the Commanders change their name back to their former name, the Washington Redskins. (He also called for baseball team the Cleveland Guardians to revert back to their old name, the Cleveland Indians).

In 2020, Washington’s name was changed after years of continued criticism over the use of a racial derogatory slur against Native Americans.

Posting on Truth Social on Sunday (20 July), Trump wrote: “I may put a restriction on them that if they don’t change the name back to the original ‘Washington Redskins,’ and get rid of the ridiculous moniker, ‘Washington Commanders,’ I won’t make a deal for them to build a Stadium in Washington.”

Back in 2013, then-president Barack Obama said he believed it would be a good thing for the team to “think about changing” their name, sparking a strong reaction from Trump.

In a resurfaced tweet from that time, Trump wrote on X/Twitter: “President should not be telling the Washington Redskins to change their name-our country has far bigger problems! FOCUS on them,not nonsense.”

Now, president Trump is trying to tell the very same team to change its name and the post has come back to bite him.

“There’s always a tweet,” someone wrote.

Another said: “Ya don’t say.”

Someone wrote: “2013 Trump: ‘FOCUS on bigger problems, not Redskins name.’

“2025 Trump: ‘Change it BACK to Redskins immediately.’

“Pick a lane, man. Hypocrisy in 280 characters or less.”

One person simply said: “Well well well.”

Someone argued: “This dude literally has a counter tweet for everything he says because he never shuts up.”

“You were saying…” one person added.

“The president was serious,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters about the topic. “Sports is one of the many passions of this president and he wants to see the name of that team changed.”

“I think you’ve seen the president gets involved in a lot of things that most presidents have not,” Leavitt continued. “He’s a nontraditional 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.”

Why not read…

Every time Donald Trump has attempted to claim something is a 'hoax'

'Your wife will be gone in 2 minutes': Trump makes bizarre joke about economy risks

Trump slammed for ‘desperate’ AI Obama video as Epstein files pressure intensifies

Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings