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President Donald Trump is once again pushing for the Washington Commanders to change their name back to the Redskins. Only now he is threatening to throw a wrench into the team’s plans to build a new stadium. Trump’s comments must have struck a nerve with Stephen A. Smith because he took a break from his summer break to appear on First Take Monday morning to talk about them.
On Sunday, Donald Trump claimed that “times are different now than they were three or four years ago.” He added that “Indian people, in massive numbers,” want the Washington football team’s name changed back to Redskins. He then threatened to “put a restriction” on the team if they don’t change the name back to Redskins.
“I won’t make a deal for them to build a stadium in Washington,” he said. “The team would be much more valuable, and the deal would be much more exciting for everyone.”
Stephen A. Smith: “The President’s being petty”
All that bluster, at least according to Stephen A. Smith on Monday, is merely serving as some sort of distraction, trying to make people forget the controversy currently swirling around the government’s files on Jeffrey Epstein.
“I think that the President’s being petty. I think it’s him being evasive,” Smith said. “Because the reality is no matter how good he wants people to believe things are, with the big beautiful bill and other things that have been transpiring, tariff wars, the border issues or whatever. If you’re on the right, obviously you’re happy with a lot of the things that are going on and there’s nothing to take credit away from that. I’ll leave the political evaluations to other people. But nevertheless, there are millions upon millions of people in the United States of America that are not necessarily happy with some of the things he is doing. So what does he do? He caters to his base. Because when you look at the Redskins name, obviously it’s something that needed to be changed. And by him bringing that issue up, we all know from a political landscape is much ado about nothing.
“It’s just him catering to his base to make sure that he serves to appease them in some way, to distract them from other issues, including the Epstein files, by the way. Because a lot of people associated with the MAGA right want those files released. And you even have Republicans or Representatives on The Hill wanting those files released, wanting to see for themselves because they’re not buying what the administration is saying when they say there is absolutely nothing there.”
Holy S—: Stephen A. Smith RIPS President Donald Trump, saying Trump is demanding the Commanders change their name to distract everyone from the Epstein files.
"I think that the president's being petty. I think it's him being evasive… it's just him catering to his base to… pic.twitter.com/xJmBVFd9iq
— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) July 21, 2025
“By the looks of the laws, and what has transpired on the books, it seems to be little to nothing that Trump can do about this other than make noise,” Stephen A. Smith continued. “But again, it does assist him in appealing to his base.”
More SAS on Trump calling for the return of the Redskins name: "By the looks of the laws, and what has transpired on the books, it seems to be little to nothing that Trump can do about this other than make noise. But again, it does assist him in appealing to his base. We… pic.twitter.com/n3iQ5vKsED
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 21, 2025
Trump himself has said the President should have better things to do
Perhaps some proof that what Stephen A. Smith says may be true comes from Donald Trump himself who wrote on X (Twitter) in 2013, “President should not be telling the Washington Redskins to change their name-our country has far bigger problems! FOCUS on them, not nonsense.”
However, he appears to have now changed his stance on such things as he also, in addition to the Commanders, wants the Cleveland Guardians to change their name back to the Indians. “Likewise, the Cleveland Indians, one of the six original baseball teams, with a storied past,” he wrote, referring to something that doesn’t exist. There were six original NHL franchises, but in baseball the original MLB franchises were the Boston Red Caps, Chicago White Stockings, Cincinnati Red Stockings, Hartford Dark Blues, Louisville Grays, Mutual of New York, Philadelphia Athletics, and the St. Louis Brown Stockings.